Unreadable folder names

Ask Fedora
1

When I list (ls) the content of a Windows file system, the folder names are displayed in light blue on a dark yellow background. This is almost unreadable. How can I fix this?

2

Can you provide some additional information, including which application you are using to see this? Are you seeing this when you are using the default terminal application, GNOME Nautilus, KDE Dolphin, etc.?

3

Sorry, yes. It’s the default terminal application in Gnome. I did configure the ‘Green on black’ scheme. However, when I check ‘Use colors from system theme’, the folder colors are the same and thus still unreadable.

Also, this is not Windows specific. Folders that are writable by all get this yellow background.

4

The colors are determined by the LS_COLORS environment variable (which comes from the dircolors command, if I remember correctly) and is used when the --color=auto argument is included in the ls command. By default, ls is an alias to ls --color=auto.

If you want to disable that, you can unset the alias in your .bashrc file (or the corresponding file if you are using a different shell), or set the ls alias to use --color=never.

Or, if you are adventurous enough, you can change the LS_COLORS environment variable to use a color scheme that you prefer.

dircolors man page: dircolors invocation (GNU Coreutils 9.5)

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5

Are we talking about F40 or F41? On F41 it changed from gnome-terminal to Ptyxis. It is a terminal for GNOME that focuses on ease-of-use in a world of containers.

Just in case on Ptyxis there it exists a big variety of color schemes. And it changes also the color of the ls command output.

Just in addition of what @theqlp mentioned:
In case of gnome-terminal you have the option to use different built-in schemes, depending on deactivating the system theme. This terminal not changes the ls color (the background is changeable) while ptyxis does. It looks like you are still on F40?! You could test ptyxis as a flatpak if you like to see, if there are more options you like.

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6

Just checked, I’m still on F40. Thanks for the information, that gives me reason to update.

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7

Just some context - The ACLs on NTFS don’t match the ACLs on *nix filesystems, so I’m guess that’s why you’re seeing this. It’s not uncommon for NTFS to look like Mardi Gras in a color terminal. I was going to suggest LS_COLORS is the way you probably should fix the output, but @theqlp beat me to it :slight_smile: .

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