Terminal: dark vs light

[aj_]

Some friends when they come over cringe at my white background terminal: "that's like staring at a lightbulb; you'll go blind!"

I tell them that the light coming in through the window is much brighter than that, so I should've been blinded years ago. What I do notice hurts my eyes is:

1. dark background in a well-lit room.
2. light background in a very dark room.

That kills my eyes in just a few minutes, because they have to constantly readjust between very dark and very bright. Because I like bright rooms, I stick with a white background, and a black font for maximum contrast. I can type all day and not suffer eye fatigue that way.

So how come the vast majority of screenshots I see of people's desktops sport terms with dark backgrounds?

[.Maleficus.]

My terminal is usually dark because my .Xdefaults has colored fonts to match my theme and light colors on a light background makes my eyes bleed :).

[dragos240]

They might be using xterm.

[chucky chuckaluck]

They might be using xterm.

huh?

[Chronon]

Probably they like dark rooms. :)

[siryuhan]

I'm simply more used to a dark background. Looking at a white background is just a bit strange.

[philcamlin]

wouldent doubt it if they like dark rooms :P

[SuperSonic4]

I'll always go for a dark terminal, add some transparency so it can make other windows appear darker

[swoll1980]

My terminal has to be black, with neon green font, or it doesn't feel like a terminal.

[RiceMonster]

White on black. Black on white is too bright, and anything else causes readability issues for me. I usually have a transparent background too.

[Eisenwinter]

My terminal is white text on black background.

[cariboo]

I use a black transparent background with yellow text.

[LookTJ]

My terminal has to be black, with neon green font, or it doesn't feel like a terminal.
+1 :P I have the same preference.

[Marlonsm]

My terminal has to be black, with neon green font, or it doesn't feel like a terminal.

Same here.

But I always leave the terminal with transparency.

BTW, I've set my compiz to invert colors when I hit "super + n" so I don't have problems like light windows on a dark room or dark windows on a light room.

[dragos240]

huh?

xterm? You know. The X terminal emulator? The default while terminal is gnome-terminal, x terminal is what comes with x.

[hessiess]

I like white on dark grey for *everything*, white backgrounds are tireing and headake inducing.

[m_duck]

I use a dark grey or black background usually. I very occasionally use a white one but never for very long. It's a grey background even in xterm for me :p

[FuturePilot]

Black semi-transparent background with white text looks the best to me.

[t0p]

I have light text on dark background because it "feels" "right". It takes me back to the 80s, when I was first exposed to home computers. The first box I ever played on was a TRS-80, and that was white text on black background. So, the terminal on my EeePC is whiute on black. On my desktop machine, it's a little different (see screenshot). But it's still light on dark.

The 80s r00l!!

:p

[init1]

Used to use black on white, but I prefer white on black now.

[l-x-l]

I have a question. I'm fairly new to Linux & wanted to change my Terminator terminal foreground colors. I know how to go to the config file but the format is foreground_color = #FFFFFF. Is there a grid or something to tell me what #FFFFFF represents.

Like what is white in this format? What's black and red and yellow? I need a translator. Any help would be appreciated.

By the way I currently have a black background & white text.

[Greg]

I have a question. I'm fairly new to Linux & wanted to change my Terminator terminal foreground colors. I know how to go to the config file but the format is foreground_color = #FFFFFF. Is there a grid or something to tell me what #FFFFFF represents.

Like what is white in this format? What's black and red and yellow? I need a translator. Any help would be appreciated.

By the way I currently have a black background & white text.

They're called hex colors. See the following website.
www.2createawebsite.com/build/hex-colors.html

[l-x-l]

Many thanks. It's exactly what I needed.

[irv]

When it comes to a word processor I want Black font on a white background because I fell like I am typing on a white piece of paper. But when it comes to a terminal I want white font on an black background. It makes me feel like I am doing computer stuff. I could use green font also, make me feel like I am in one of those old SiFi movies.

[Gizenshya]

+1 :P I have the same preference.

that makes 4 of us ;)

I do transparency sometimes also

and yeah, black or white background + F11 + Super-N = seizure!

[sisco311]

semi-transparent black background with white text:

http://i42.tinypic.com/2zp3x9y.png

[l-x-l]

After some tweaking (thanks Greg) here's mine. Black background & text colors are orange. I have it set to transparent background also.


http://i41.tinypic.com/2hgv9dz.png

[Chemical Imbalance]

Turquoise-ish on semi-transparent black.

119146

[itreius]

I tell them that the light coming in through the window is much brighter than that, so I should've been blinded years ago.
Unless you often have to focus on the light coming from the outside of your window, that's not a good analogy.

[hessiess]

When it comes to a word processor I want Black font on a white background because I fell like I am typing on a white piece of paper.

A computer monitor is *NOT* paper, end of story :).

[learningcurb]

Actually, paper based teleprinters preceeded computer terminals.


Some of the earliest computers (for example, the LGP-30) used teleprinters for input and output. Teleprinters were also used as the first interactive computer terminals. They had no video display. Users typed commands after a prompt character appeared. This was the origin of the text terminal and the command line interface. The paper tape function was sometimes used to prepare input for the computer session offline, or to capture computer output.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletypewriter#Teleprinters_in_computing

But in any case, I like a dark terminal. :)

[swoll1980]

A computer monitor is *NOT* paper, end of story :).

Depends on how old your computer is. :wink:

[dragos240]

Depends on how old your computer is. :wink:

This is true.

[Daisuke_Aramaki]

Thanks to my job, I have to work in a console most of the time. I can work best with a dark background. But I have a personal color setup to take care of most of the tasks in the terminal. vim takes its colors from a color scheme that i have set in my .vimrc. That does it for all the text editing.

This is my color setup.

http://omploader.org/vMXc0Mw (http://omploader.org/vMXc0Mw)

[Incense]

Another vote for green on black.

[irv]

A computer monitor is *NOT* paper, end of story :).

Ya, I know, but I said it only makes me feel like I am. Last week I had to throw my LCD in the trash. It died on me. It was like throwing away a expense piece of paper. I bought another one for $139 from newegg. Not a bad monitor for the money. It was a 22".

[adssse]

I go with white on a solid black background. I always find the semi transparent distracting...

[Screwdriver0815]

I like a transparant terminal, which is green letters on dark background
because it should be stylish but also have a touch of the good old times as the letters were green and the background was black.

[binbash]

white on black or green on black

[Eviltechie]

Dark blue on black.

[Pogeymanz]

Light terminals will make you go blind! Something about it really does give me a headache. I can understand reading regular text from a white background, but reading all those symbols and commands is impossible for me.

I prefer light grey text on a black background, with a little bit of transparency so that I can read through it if I have to.

[RaZe42]

I like a transparant terminal, which is green letters on dark background
because it should be stylish but also have a touch of the good old times as the letters were green and the background was black.

That would look much better if you'd hide the scrollbar (and maybe the menubar also) :)

[Screwdriver0815]

That would look much better if you'd hide the scrollbar (and maybe the menubar also) :)

I need both of them. So Form/Style follows Function :D