Ubuntu, Vim, and the solarized color palette

Question

I'd really like to get in on all the colorful goodness of the solarized colorscheme, but I can't seem to get it configured just right.

I have the main solarized file in my .vim/colors folder, I've set my terminal profile colors to what is listed on the site, and I've added the lines

 set background=dark
 let g:solarized_termcolors=16
 colorscheme solarized

to my .vimrc file, but Vim looks greyed out and is using a bright green color as the default. How can I do it?

this might be useful to you [issue][1] [1]: https://superuser.com/questions/311370/solarized-colors-in-vim-dont-seem-to-be-working-for-me/968594#968594 — vrkansagara, Sep 05 '15 at 05:50

score 152 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 28 '22 at 20:55

152

Here's my recommendation for things to try:

ensure syntax on is in your .vimrc file
Check what t_Co Vim has picked up from your term emulator (a quick :echo &t_Co). If it's 8, you'll want to se t_Co=16. You might also try se t_Co=256 though without let g:solarized_termcolors=16 this will use the 256 fallback mode, which isn't quite the correct color scheme.

edited Feb 28 '22 at 20:55

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 06 '11 at 05:23

altercation

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Holy crap, didn't expect an answer from the author! Thanks altercation, I'll try your recommendations and shoot you an email later today. – danwoods Apr 06 '11 at 12:59
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t_Co is what was the problem on my Ubuntu box too. I installed the gnome-terminal-colors-solarized package, but it wasn't using the right background color. se t_Co=16 did the trick. Thanks! – Martin Janiczek May 19 '11 at 16:16
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order apparently matters as well. i found that set t_Co=16 after colorscheme solarized doesn't work. you have to set t_Co before the colorscheme. – rev Jan 03 '12 at 18:48
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I find my blank/empty lines are not the same background color. How do i fix this? – Setheron Apr 17 '13 at 22:21
I do `syntax on`, `let g:solarized_termcolors=256`, `set background=dark` and `colorscheme solarized` but it’s not quite correct. Also I use Pathogen. – kleinfreund Apr 11 '17 at 08:37

score 42 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 28 '22 at 21:01

42

set t_Co=16 and let g:solarized_termcolors=16 did not work for me. This is what worked:

syntax on
let g:solarized_termcolors=256
set t_Co=256 
set background=dark
colorscheme solarized

edited Feb 28 '22 at 21:01

Peter Mortensen

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answered Dec 12 '14 at 15:05

Anton Jebrak

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I needed syntax on *before* the rest (I had it after) plus let g:solarized_termcolors=256 . Thanks! – user798275 Dec 12 '15 at 15:33
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I spent two hours trying to figure this out, turns out solarized_termcolors=256 was my problem -AND- that it must appear before changing the colorscheme. – PeterT Sep 21 '16 at 21:48

score 19 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 17 '12 at 14:00

19

I found out how do do it from this article.

I wrote the following script to do the gnome-terminal stuff.

gconftool-2 --set "/apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/use_theme_background" --type bool false
gconftool-2 --set "/apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/use_theme_colors" --type bool false
gconftool-2 --set "/apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/palette" --type string "#070736364242:#D3D301010202:#858599990000:#B5B589890000:#26268B8BD2D2:#D3D336368282:#2A2AA1A19898:#EEEEE8E8D5D5:#00002B2B3636:#CBCB4B4B1616:#58586E6E7575:#65657B7B8383:#838394949696:#6C6C7171C4C4:#9393A1A1A1A1:#FDFDF6F6E3E3"
gconftool-2 --set "/apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/background_color" --type string "#00002B2B3636"
gconftool-2 --set "/apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/foreground_color" --type string "#838394949696"

edited Aug 17 '12 at 14:00

claytron

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answered Oct 12 '11 at 03:30

t-mart

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I think the foreground colour on a dark background should be "base0" not "base00". So the last line should be `gconftool-2 --set "/apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/foreground_color" --type string "#838394949696"` – Chris Wesseling Nov 30 '11 at 16:09
Ahh, you know, i always thought that was off. Thanks! – t-mart Dec 07 '11 at 14:33
it fixed the issue but messed up the original colors of files and folders....i wanted solarized only in vim or at least keep the highlight of folders and files(executables) now everything looks the same..any workaround? – Eliethesaiyan Oct 17 '14 at 09:47
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The article you linked to in your answer is no longer available. This answer now lacks necessary context/explanation. – kleinfreund Apr 11 '17 at 08:31

score 9 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 28 '22 at 20:59

9

If you are trying to use Vim with solarized inside of tmux, this is the fix for your issue:

Fix solarized theme in tmux

edited Feb 28 '22 at 20:59

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 31 '12 at 20:39

osmosis

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This. This worked perfectly for me after just over an hour of looking around. Thank you! – malvim Jul 07 '14 at 21:23

score 3 · Answer 5 · edited Feb 28 '22 at 21:01

For the copy and paste lovers, this is how you install the solarized Vim colorscheme on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install wget unzip curl
cd
wget http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized/files/solarized.zip
unzip solarized.zip
mkdir .vim
mkdir .vim/colors/
mv solarized/vim-colors-solarized/colors/solarized.vim ~/.vim/colors/
cp .vimrc .vimrc.old
echo "syntax enable" > .vimrc
echo "set background=dark" >> .vimrc
echo "colorscheme solarized" >> .vimrc
curl https://raw.github.com/seebi/dircolors-solarized/master/dircolors.256dark > ~/.dircolors
source .bashrc
rm -r solarized
rm solarized.zip

And presto.

score 3 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 28 '22 at 21:09

From the README (emphasis mine):

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR TERMINAL USERS:

If you are going to use Solarized in Terminal mode (i.e. not in a GUI version like gvim or macvim), please please please consider setting your terminal emulator's colorscheme to used the Solarized palette. I've included palettes for some popular terminal emulator as well as Xdefaults in the official Solarized download available from [Solarized homepage]. If you use Solarized without these colors, Solarized will need to be told to degrade its colorscheme to a set compatible with the limited 256 terminal palette (whereas by using the terminal's 16 ansi color values, you can set the correct, specific values for the Solarized palette).

If you do use the custom terminal colors, solarized.vim should work out of the box for you. If you are using a terminal emulator that supports 256 colors and don't want to use the custom Solarized terminal colors, you will need to use the degraded 256 colorscheme. To do so, simply add the following line before the colorschem solarized line:
let g:solarized_termcolors=256
Again, I recommend just changing your terminal colors to Solarized values either manually or via one of the many terminal schemes available for import.

Simply selecting Solarized for both "Text and Background Color" (choose light or dark) and "Palette" in Terminal → Preferences → Profiles → (select yours) → Edit → Colors worked for me on Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) with the included Terminal application.

Some other answers recommend choosing a 256 color palette but, as mentioned in the documentation, this gives you a degraded (and visibly worse in my opinion) color scheme.

For clarity, "Terminal > Preferences" means "Right click on terminal and select preferences" — Krish, Feb 07 '21 at 10:31

score 3 · Answer 7 · edited Feb 28 '22 at 20:49

Trying it out myself, it seems to work better without the

let g:solarized_termcolors=16

Setting it to 16, I get the bright green color you seem to describe. Maybe try leaving it at the default of 256?

This doesn't, however, perfectly mimic the colors from the screenshots (although the light version looks fairly close). I only get the colors with the screenshot if I use gVim.

I didn't use the terminal profile colors provided, however, so you may get a different result.

rofrol · Answer 8 · 2014-03-03T01:45:00.760

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This worked for me for exherbo

git clone https://github.com/sigurdga/gnome-terminal-colors-solarized
cd gnome-terminal-colors-solarized
sh install.sh -s dark -p <my_current_profile>

256 colors in vim may also help

edited Mar 03 '14 at 01:45

answered Mar 03 '14 at 01:36

rofrol

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This was the only solution that worked for me. I was using the Solarized Dark gnome-terminal scheme that Ubuntu ships with, and while it looked fine in the shell itself, Vim looked like a mess. Some of the other answers here (tweaking Vim config) helped get it close to right, but the background color was still black or grey, rather than the slate-blue it's supposed to be. Installing this replacement gnome-terminal colorscheme fixed it with my default Vim config. – Jim Stewart Aug 23 '17 at 15:07

Ubuntu, Vim, and the solarized color palette

8 Answers8

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR TERMINAL USERS:

Linked