Note: I think this changed in later releases of Debian (Verison 4.0) but I'm keeping it just in case
In Debian, if you want to have the ls command return it's results in color, you have to type it ls --color. Since I'm not one for more typing, this wouldn't do. There is a bunch of info on the Net this all misleading and contridictory on how to best enable this on Debian.
Not to be left out, here's my contribution
First, edit your .bash_profile file in the username you log into.
At the top of the file include the line export TERM=xterm-color
Then uncomment the following section
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi
Then in your .bashrc file
* Make sure that this section is uncommented (Should be by default)
# enable color support of ls and also add handy aliases
if [ "$TERM" != "dumb" ]; then
eval `dircolors -b`
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias dir='ls --color=auto --format=vertical'
alias vdir='ls --color=auto --format=long'
fi
That should be it. Just log out and log in again. Later on I'll figure out which of the /etc files you edit to apply this to the new user template.
# enable color support of ls and also add handy aliases
if [ "$TERM" != "dumb" ]; then
eval `dircolors -b`
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias dir='ls --color=auto --format=vertical'
alias vdir='ls --color=auto --format=long'
fi