On Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:01:51 pm Dustin Kirkland wrote: > Howdy Ubuntu-devel and Ubuntu-server, > > We just uploaded a couple of small patches a week ahead of > UserInterfaceFreeze to five packages that affect the console tty and > vt interface. We're hoping you can help test this on your hardware > and let us know if you find any adverse affects (please subscribe me > to the bug reports, if you do!) :-) > > The end goals were (Bug #730672): > 1) Improve the virtual terminal color palette > 2) Modernize the visual experience on Ubuntu servers > > To solve (1), we wrote a small C program that you should now find in > /sbin/setvtrgb. You can refer to the manpage for the full > documentation. It's a handy utility that reads a set of well-formed > RGB values from file and then uses an ioctl to dynamically apply them > to all consoles. This utility is currently provided in the kbd > package, and I'm working on getting that upstream into Debian. > > The default colors used by the Linux kernel are quite simply the > traditional 16 VGA colors, which you can find at: > * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#Colors > > While perhaps mathematically symmetric, some of those colors are a > pretty hard on the eyes. The Ubuntu Design Team has put quite a bit > of effort into selecting a distinctive color scheme for the Ubuntu > Desktop, and they have now carefully selected an 16 color palette for > server consoles too! > > So the next three pieces of (1) are solved by a series of uploads to: > * console-setup -- add a conffile at /etc/vtrgb (so that you can > customize your own console colors, if you don't like the ones Ubuntu > provides!), and an upstart job that applies them on boot with > 'setvtrgb /etc/vtrgb' > * rootskel -- call 'setvtrgb /etc/vtrgb' early in the Server and > Alternate installer for its virtual terminals > * bogl -- update the colors in the bterm palette used by > debian-installer (it happens to hard code them) > > After upgrading your local system's kbd and console-setup packages, > you should now have a crisp, new, clean color scheme in your tty. > There should be no affect whatsoever in [X, Gnome, KDE, XFCE, > gnome-terminal, konsole] or even SSH sessions to your server. > However, if you drop to a command prompt with ctrl-alt-F1, you should > see a nice difference. Note that if for some reason perhaps you > prefer the legacy VGA colors, you can revert the change simply with: > $ sudo setvtrgb vga > And if you want to make that permanent, follow with: > $ cat /sys/module/vt/parameters/default_{red,grn,blu} | sudo tee > /etc/vtrgb > > And as soon as the daily cdimage builder picks up the changes to > rootskel and bogl (within a day or two?), you should see the same > color improvements in the Natty Server and Alternate installer > screens. > > Now to address (2), we've made one minor change to the newt library, > which defines the color scheme for most curses-based utilities -- most > importantly, debconf and in turn, the debian-installer. If you've > ever installed an Ubuntu server, and in staring at the screen thought, > "That blue sure looks a lot like MS-DOS circa 1988," we're right there > with you. So we've swapped that aged "Microsoft blue" out for some > modern "Ubuntu aubergine"! > > So what does all of this look like? Here are some screen shots! > * On the console > * before: http://bit.ly/fvm16s > * after: http://bit.ly/dRF9yi > * And in the installer > * msdos6: http://bit.ly/gyQgJL > * before: http://bit.ly/i1cc5Q > * after: http://bit.ly/hRLDDI > > Spiffy, huh? Thanks to everyone who help spread some Aubergine-love > to Ubuntu Server folks!
So now every Ubuntu flavor gets Aubergine even though that's not their color scheme? How do we over-ride this for Kubuntu (there have been complaints on #kubuntu- devel today)? Scott K -- ubuntu-server mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server More info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam
