terminal-colors.d

I have already talked about it at g+. For util-linux we don't want to follow the current strange behavior when command-line utils have disabled colors by default, but distributions use shell aliases in profile files to revert the default.

It does not mean that we want ignore color blind people, obscure terminals or people who just don't like colors. The solution is to provide simple, elegant and package independent way how to control (disable) colorized output. And yes, aliases are not elegant.

The next util-linux release is going to introduce /etc/terminal-colors.d directory
to control colors for terminal utils. It's pretty simple:

Synopsis:

/etc/terminal-colors.d/[name.]disable
/etc/terminal-colors.d/name.enable

Examples:

•  disable colors for all utils:

  # touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/disable 
  

• disable colors for dmesg(1):

  # touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/dmesg.disable

• disable colors for all utils except dmesg(1):

  # touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/disable
  # touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/dmesg.enable

For utils from util-linux the command line option --color[={auto,never,always}] overrides the setting from terminal-colors.d (so if you for some reason love shell aliases then it's still possible...).

The terminal-colors.d concept is completely open, it would be nice to see it supported in another projects (hint: gcc, grep, coreutils:-) too. It's so trivial that all you need is a few access(F_OK) calls. The thing we maintain in util-linux is terminal-colors.d.5 man page only.

Maybe later for util-linux we will also use the directory (or/and copy in $HOME) to store color schemes.

Keep your Bike-sheds colorized! :-)

UPDATE: since v2.25:

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d  or  $HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d overrides the global setting
• terminal-colors.d is possible to use for color schemes
      echo 'alert 37;41' >> /etc/terminal-colors.d/dmesg.scheme
  changes color used for kernel alerts in dmesg output
• synopsis is /etc/terminal-colors.d/[[name][@term].][type], it means that for example /etc/terminal-colors.d/@vt100.disable disables colors for all vt100 terminals
• we have terminal-colors.d(5) man page with all details