Is there a way to get ls to print in colour in busybox?

Solution 1:

The current busybox version for the latest release of Diablo (43-7) is 1.6.1, which as you've seen doesn't include options for colour.

A fully coloured version of ls can be installed on the n810 from Andrey's repository.
If you don't wish to install and use this repository you can install ls-color manually by downloading and using dpkg -i.

Then as x3ja says you can create an alias for it, although since Maemo uses Busybox your default shell is sh, so you'll have to put the alias in your .profile

alias ls='ls.color'

Installing bash is also easy if you so wish - bash2 can be installed from the Maemo extras repository, and bash3 is available through the gronmayer link below.

A great resource for finding apps in certain repositories is gronmayer's site, and of course the latest developments from Maemo Talk.

Solution 2:

ls --color doesn't work?

I thought it was supposed to on the more recent versions.

http://www.busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html

Solution 3:

You could of course put something like this in your login scripts (.bashrc or similar):

alias ls='ls --color=auto'

Then when you type ls, it will actually run the command ls --color=auto and so it will display in colour*.

* Sorry for the British spelling, but I am British after all :)