Ubuntu, vim, and the solarized color palette

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, but vim looks grey-ed out and is using a bright green color as the default. Any ideas?

Solution 1:

Here's my recommendation for things to try:

ensure syntax on is in your .vimrc
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.

I'd comment on the question above for the following, but karma of 50 is required. Please do email me via the project site to troubleshoot this further as I am in the process of establishing a good walkthrough for common color issues.

Solution 2:

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

I hope this helps someone.

Solution 3:

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"

Solution 4:

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

https://github.com/krisleech/vimfiles/wiki/Fix-solarized-theme-in-tmux

Solution 5:

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.