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Accepted
Louis
Asked: 2015-10-23 01:54:51 +0800 CST

can't enable prompt color in bash terminal

  • 772

I can't enable prompt color in my terminal (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS).

Here's my .bashrc:

force_color_prompt=yes
export LANGUAGE='en_US.UTF-8 git'

export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth
#export HISTSIZE=100000
#export HISTFILESIZE=100000

# Eternal bash history.
# ---------------------
# Undocumented feature which sets the size to "unlimited".
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9457233/unlimited-bash-history
export HISTFILESIZE=
export HISTSIZE=
export HISTTIMEFORMAT="[%F %T] "
# Change the file location because certain bash sessions truncate .bash_history file upon close.
# http://superuser.com/questions/575479/bash-history-truncated-to-500-lines-on-each-login
export HISTFILE=~/.bash_eternal_history
# Force prompt to write history after every command.
# http://superuser.com/questions/20900/bash-history-loss
PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a; $PROMPT_COMMAND"
# #########

# Some example functions
# function settitle() { echo -ne "\e]2;$@\a\e]1;$@\a"; }
export PATH=${PATH}:/home/louisro/android-sdk-linux/tools
export PATH=${PATH}:/home/louisro/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64
export PATH=${JAVA_HOME}/bin:$PATH
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

export NVM_DIR="/home/louisro/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm

[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm"
command-line

2 Answers

  1. I guess, you don't have set a colour to your prompt. You can do this with the following syntax: \e[x;ym $PS1 \e[m

    \e[ : Start colour scheme.
x;y : Colour pair to use (x;y)
$PS1 : Your shell prompt variable.
\e[m : Stop colour scheme.

    To set a red colour prompt, type the following command:

    export PS1="\e[0;31m[\u@\h \W]\$ \e[m "

    add it to your .bashrc to make it permanent.

    Here is a list of available colours:

    Colour  Code
Black   0;30
Blue    0;34
Green   0;32
Cyan    0;36
Red     0;31
Purple  0;35
Brown   0;33
Blue    0;34
Green   0;32
Cyan    0;36
Red     0;31
Purple  0;35
Brown   0;33

    Note: You need to replace digit 0 with 1 to get light colour version. refer to this tutorial for more info. You may also take a look at this very good german explanation

    • 4
  2. Best Answer

    This will enable color and will also enable color for some output such as for the output of make and ls.

    # Commented out, don't overwrite xterm -T "title" -n "icontitle" by default.
# If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME}: ${PWD}\007"'
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac


# set variable identifying the chroot you work in (used in the prompt below)
if [ -z "${debian_chroot:-}" ] && [ -r /etc/debian_chroot ]; then
    debian_chroot=$(cat /etc/debian_chroot)
fi

# set a fancy prompt (non-color, unless we know we "want" color)
case "$TERM" in
    xterm-color) color_prompt=yes;;
esac

# uncomment for a colored prompt, if the terminal has the capability; turned
# off by default to not distract the user: the focus in a terminal window
# should be on the output of commands, not on the prompt
force_color_prompt=yes

if [ -n "$force_color_prompt" ]; then
    if [ -x /usr/bin/tput ] && tput setaf 1 >&/dev/null; then
    # We have color support; assume it's compliant with Ecma-48
    # (ISO/IEC-6429). (Lack of such support is extremely rare, and such
    # a case would tend to support setf rather than setaf.)
    color_prompt=yes
    else
    color_prompt=yes
    fi
fi

if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
else
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '
fi
unset color_prompt force_color_prompt

# If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    PS1="\[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1"
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac

# enable color support of ls and also add handy aliases
if [ -x /usr/bin/dircolors ]; then
    test -r ~/.dircolors && eval "$(dircolors -b ~/.dircolors)" || eval "$(dircolors -b)"
    alias ls='ls --color=auto'
    alias dir='dir --color=auto'
    alias vdir='vdir --color=auto'

    alias grep='grep --color=auto'
    alias fgrep='fgrep --color=auto'
    alias egrep='egrep --color=auto'
fi

# some more ls aliases
alias ll='ls -l'
alias la='ls -A'
alias l='ls -CF'

# Alias definitions.
# You may want to put all your additions into a separate file like
# ~/.bash_aliases, instead of adding them here directly.
# See /usr/share/doc/bash-doc/examples in the bash-doc package.

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
    . ~/.bash_aliases
fi

make()
{
                                /usr/bin/make "$@" 2>&1 | sed -E -e "s/error/ $(echo -e "\\033[31m" ERROR "\\033[0m"/g)"   -e "s/warning/ $(echo -e "\\033[0;33m" WARNING "\\033[0m"/g)"
                                                                return ${PIPESTATUS[0]}
}

    Source your ~/.bashrc file to apply the changes:

    . ~/.bashrc
    • 4