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RTFM
Authored by: robeen on Apr 12, '04 03:29:23PM

The ls -G is fine for terminal - but it does not work for me using the X11 xterm...which I mainly use.

The coreutils ls works in both.

If you can get the standard ls to work in xterm, maybe someone could post how to do so! Thanks -

Rob



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RTFM
Authored by: Nugget on Apr 12, '04 04:17:26PM

This is an artifact of your $TERM environment variable. The default is "xterm" which doesn't indicate a color-capable device.

Try setting TERM to xterm-color and it will work fine.

export TERM=xterm-color (bash)
setenv TERM xterm-color (tcsh)



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RTFM
Authored by: otomo on Apr 15, '04 12:50:36AM
From the manpage man ls:
CLICOLOR Use ANSI color sequences to distinguish file types. See LSCOLORS below. In addition to the file types mentioned in the -F option some extra attributes (setuid bit set, etc.) are also displayed. The colorization is dependent on a terminal type with the proper termcap(5) capabili- ties. The default ``cons25'' console has the proper capabilities, but to display the colors in an xterm(1), for example, the TERM variable must be set to ``xterm-color''. Other terminal types may require simi- lar adjustments. Colorization is silently disabled if the output isn't directed to a terminal unless the CLICOLOR_FORCE variable is defined.

CLICOLOR_FORCE Color sequences are normally disabled if the output isn't directed to a terminal. This can be overridden by set- ting this flag. The TERM variable still needs to refer- ence a color capable terminal however otherwise it is not possible to determine which color sequences to use.
So set CLICOLOR_FORCE to 1 if you feel really sure about what you are doing. Don't forget to set TERM to something meaningful!

Good luck!

And personally I prefer to install almost everything in my user account, then I modify my PATH as needed. This way if anything happens to my install, a simple restore of files in my home directory is ALL that is needed to bring myself back to where I am now. (well outside of a reboot and installation of some applications) As a longtime FreeBSD user, I prefer the BSD utils, but your preference.

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