How to change the background color of gnome-terminal?

Question

How to change the background color? I selected Profile > Background > solid color, but where can I select the color?

Twelve

For future readers: OP asked about xterm but is actually using gnome-terminal, so the accepted answer is about gnome-terminal and all the other answers are about xterm – Neurophysiology

Answer 1

Since it seems to be Terminal you're talking about, did you disable "Use colors from system theme" under Colors? Once you do that, you can pick a background color, still under the Colors tab. The Background tab looks like it only allows selecting an image (or transparency), which tripped me up as well.

Cogitable

Thanks goodness for the comment from @MichaelMrozek under the OP's question. It's a shame the only correct answer is the least-upvoted! – Yadirayaeger

Answer 2

There are two well-supported ways to change the background color of an xterm (remember xterm != Terminal).

A. Set the color when you create the xterm: E.g.,

% xterm -bg yellow &

OR

B. Edit .Xdefaults to include a color specification, such as the following: XTerm*background:yellow

% vi ~/.Xdefaults  (pick your favorite editor)

This can also be done by typing the following into an xterm:

% cat >> ~/.Xdefaults  <RETURN>
XTerm*background:yellow<RETURN>
<CTRL-D>

Whichever way you change .Xdefaults, the change will not take effect until either:

• xrdb ~/.Xdefaults
• your X server is restarted, probably the easiest way to do that is reboot your machine, or log out.

Then it will be set once and for all.

Cogitable

Very true! For more expert users this is the way to go. – Cogitable

Update: As of Jan 2016, ~/.Xdefaults is deprecated in favour of ~/.Xresources. So one will need to add XTerm*Background: LemonChiffon line to the ~/.Xresources file, where LemonChiffon is a color name. See critical.ch/xterm for a list of colors which may be supported in your version of XTerm. – Shevlo

Answer 3

I would suggest reversing the default foreground and background colors using

xterm -rv

Darbydarce

Answer 4

I use the following colors and font setup for xterm. Add the following to your ".Xresources" file in your home directory.

XTerm*faceName: Bitstream Vera Serif Mono
xterm*faceSize: 11
xterm*vt100*geometry: 80x60
xterm*saveLines: 16384
xterm*loginShell: true
xterm*charClass: 33:48,35:48,37:48,43:48,45-47:48,64:48,95:48,126:48
xterm*termName: xterm-color
xterm*eightBitInput: false

!BLK Cursor
#define _color0        #000d18
#define _color8        #000d18
!RED Tag
#define _color1        #e89393
#define _color9        #e89393
!GRN SpecialKey
#define _color2        #9ece13
#define _color10       #9ece13
!YEL Keyword
#define _color3        #f0dfaf
#define _color11       #f0dfaf
!BLU Number
#define _color4        #8cd0d3
#define _color12       #8cd0d3
!MAG Precondit
#define _color5        #c0bed1
#define _color13       #c0bed1
!CYN Float
#define _color6        #dfaf8f
#define _color14       #dfaf8f
!WHT Search
#define _color7        #efefef
#define _color15       #efefef
!FMT Include, StatusLine, ErrorMsg
#define _colorBD       #ffcfaf
#define _colorUL       #ccdc90
#define _colorIT       #80d4aa
!TXT Normal, Normal, Cursor
#define _foreground    #dcdccc
#define _background    #1f1f1f
#define _cursorColor   #8faf9f
URxvt*color0         : _color0
URxvt*color1         : _color1
URxvt*color2         : _color2
URxvt*color3         : _color3
URxvt*color4         : _color4
URxvt*color5         : _color5
URxvt*color6         : _color6
URxvt*color7         : _color7
URxvt*color8         : _color8
URxvt*color9         : _color9
URxvt*color10        : _color10
URxvt*color11        : _color11
URxvt*color12        : _color12
URxvt*color13        : _color13
URxvt*color14        : _color14
URxvt*color15        : _color15
URxvt*colorBD        : _colorBD
URxvt*colorIT        : _colorIT
URxvt*colorUL        : _colorUL
URxvt*foreground     : _foreground
URxvt*background     : _background
URxvt*cursorColor    : _cursorColor
XTerm*color0         : _color0
XTerm*color1         : _color1
XTerm*color2         : _color2
XTerm*color3         : _color3
XTerm*color4         : _color4
XTerm*color5         : _color5
XTerm*color6         : _color6
XTerm*color7         : _color7
XTerm*color8         : _color8
XTerm*color9         : _color9
XTerm*color10        : _color10
XTerm*color11        : _color11
XTerm*color12        : _color12
XTerm*color13        : _color13
XTerm*color14        : _color14
XTerm*color15        : _color15
XTerm*colorBD        : _colorBD
XTerm*colorIT        : _colorIT
XTerm*colorUL        : _colorUL
XTerm*foreground     : _foreground
XTerm*background     : _background
XTerm*cursorColor    : _cursorColor

When you have saved the file, run the following to save the changes:

xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

Embracery

right, that is for permanent settings (to be stored in file); one thing to note the string XTerm is case-insensitive (meaning eg. xterm*background: black would also do). – Cloudcapped

these are really nice settings. – Thickhead