Solarized Linux - Comment Page: 2
I like very much Ethan Schoonover Solarized color palette. So I decided write a guide, howto get Solarized colors to most commonly used Linux terminals (Gnome-Terminal, Konsole, XFCE Terminal, Mate-Terminal), Text editors (Gedit, Vim) and IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans). These are not my projects, so the greatest honor belongs, of course, these projects owners and Ethan Schoonover.
1. Install Needed Tools (git, mercurial, 7-zip)
2. Create and Change to Solarized Directory
3. Solarized Terminals
3.1 Solarized Gnome-Terminal
3.2 Solarized Konsole
3.3 Solarized Terminal (XFCE Terminal)
3.4 Solarized Mate-Terminal
4. Solarized Editors
4.1 Solarized Gedit
4.2 Solarized Vim
5....
Hi, thanks for the install scripts! They worked great for ubuntu 12.04 terminal. The vim (also running in 12.04) stuff works to get the colors in vim, but there is a long list of errors, which I have to dismiss with ENTER, which is a little annoying. Are there some things I need to define?
Error detected while processing /home/user/.vim/colors/solarized.vim:
line 138:
E697: Missing end of List ‘]’:
E15: Invalid expression: [
line 139:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 140:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 141:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 144:
E697: Missing end of List ‘]’:
E15: Invalid expression: [
line 145:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 146:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 147:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 152:
E121: Undefined variable: s:terms_italic
E15: Invalid expression: s:terms_italic
line 165:
E697: Missing end of List ‘]’:
E15: Invalid expression: [
line 166:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 167:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 168:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 169:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 170:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 171:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 172:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 173:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 174:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 175:
E697: Missing end of List ‘]’:
E15: Invalid expression: [
line 176:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 177:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 178:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 179:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 180:
E697: Missing end of List ‘]’:
E15: Invalid expression: [
line 181:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 182:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 183:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 184:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 185:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 186:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 187:
E697: Missing end of List ‘]’:
E15: Invalid expression: [
Press ENTER or type command to continue
line 188:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 189:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
line 190:
E10: \ should be followed by /, ? or &
Error detected while processing function 9_SetOption:
line 10:
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
E121: Undefined variable: s:defaults_list
E116: Invalid arguments for function add
Press ENTER or type command to continue
Hi Rafael,
Sorry for the late reply, but could you post content of your ~/.vimrc file?
its not late, everybody has things to do :D
the contents of ~/.vimrc
syntax on
filetype plugin indent on
syntax enable
set t_Co=16
set background=dark
colorscheme solarized
Hi again Rafael,
I just test this on clean installed Ubuntu 12.04.4 desktop. Installed just git and vim. Then setup Gnome-terminal solarized theme. Then setup vim solarized theme and tried my example vimrc, no errors, then I tried exactly same vimrc what you have and still no errors.
Could you try following:
If you still get same errors, could you post output of following commands:
Hi, thanks again for your time with this
ls -ls ~/.vim
total 12
4 drwxrwxr-x 2 rafael rafael 4096 Feb 5 19:38 autoload
4 drwxrwxr-x 5 rafael rafael 4096 Feb 5 20:26 bundle
4 drwxrwxr-x 2 rafael rafael 4096 Feb 16 14:03 colors
ls -la ~/.vim/colors
total 60
drwxrwxr-x 2 rafael rafael 4096 Feb 16 14:03 .
drwxrwxr-x 5 rafael rafael 4096 Feb 5 21:24 ..
-rw-rw-r– 1 rafael rafael 51917 Feb 16 14:03 solarized.vim
md5sum ~/.vim/colors/solarized.vim
d9ef5cbc3af65a6bf39bd5114ab90af1 /home/rafael/.vim/colors/solarized.vim
dpkg-query -l ‘vim*’
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii vim 2:7.3.429-2ubu Vi IMproved – enhanced vi editor
un vim-athena (no description available)
ii vim-common 2:7.3.429-2ubu Vi IMproved – Common files
un vim-doc (no description available)
un vim-gnome (no description available)
un vim-gtk (no description available)
un vim-lua (no description available)
ii vim-nox 2:7.3.429-2ubu Vi IMproved – enhanced vi editor
un vim-perl (no description available)
un vim-python (no description available)
un vim-ruby (no description available)
ii vim-runtime 2:7.3.429-2ubu Vi IMproved – Runtime files
un vim-scripts (no description available)
un vim-tcl (no description available)
ii vim-tiny 2:7.3.429-2ubu Vi IMproved – enhanced vi editor – compact v
Hi again Rafael,
I tried to debug this more and looks like that the problem is multiline lists on solarized.vim file, example:
This syntax should be okay, but strange thing is that, with exactly same file with same vim packages and same OS version and I get no errors and you get. One workaround could be convert these multiline lists to single line, like:
But still it’s not real solution to this problem, because if you later update this file, then you have same problem again or you might get same problem with some other .vim files too.
A few additional questions, what shell you use?
Do you have pathogen installed?
Could you post output of following command:
Hi,
I use zsh, with oh-my-zsh. I installed pathogen, but I suppose it might not be working.
tree ~/.vim
/home/rafael/.vim
├── autoload
│  └── pathogen.vim
├── bundle
│  ├── command-t
│  │  ├── bin
│  │  │  └── benchmark.rb
│  │  ├── command-t.gemspec
│  │  ├── compile-test.sh
│  │  ├── data
│  │  │  └── benchmark.yml
│  │  ├── doc
│  │  │  └── command-t.txt
│  │  ├── fixtures
│  │  │  ├── bar
│  │  │  │  ├── abc
│  │  │  │  └── xyz
│  │  │  ├── baz
│  │  │  ├── bing
│  │  │  └── foo
│  │  │  ├── alpha
│  │  │  │  ├── t1
│  │  │  │  └── t2
│  │  │  └── beta
│  │  ├── Gemfile
│  │  ├── Gemfile.lock
│  │  ├── LICENSE
│  │  ├── Makefile
│  │  ├── multi-spec.sh
│  │  ├── plugin
│  │  │  └── command-t.vim
│  │  ├── Rakefile
│  │  ├── README.txt -> doc/command-t.txt
│  │  ├── ruby
│  │  │  └── command-t
│  │  │  ├── controller.rb
│  │  │  ├── depend
│  │  │  ├── ext.c
│  │  │  ├── extconf.rb
│  │  │  ├── ext.h
│  │  │  ├── ext.o
│  │  │  ├── ext.so
│  │  │  ├── finder
│  │  │  │  ├── buffer_finder.rb
│  │  │  │  ├── file_finder.rb
│  │  │  │  ├── jump_finder.rb
│  │  │  │  └── tag_finder.rb
│  │  │  ├── finder.rb
│  │  │  ├── Makefile
│  │  │  ├── match.c
│  │  │  ├── matcher.c
│  │  │  ├── matcher.h
│  │  │  ├── matcher.o
│  │  │  ├── match.h
│  │  │  ├── match.o
│  │  │  ├── match_window.rb
│  │  │  ├── mkmf.log
│  │  │  ├── prompt.rb
│  │  │  ├── ruby_compat.h
│  │  │  ├── scanner
│  │  │  │  ├── buffer_scanner.rb
│  │  │  │  ├── file_scanner.rb
│  │  │  │  ├── jump_scanner.rb
│  │  │  │  └── tag_scanner.rb
│  │  │  ├── scanner.rb
│  │  │  ├── settings.rb
│  │  │  ├── stub.rb
│  │  │  ├── util.rb
│  │  │  ├── vim
│  │  │  │  ├── path_utilities.rb
│  │  │  │  ├── screen.rb
│  │  │  │  └── window.rb
│  │  │  └── vim.rb
│  │  ├── spec
│  │  │  ├── command-t
│  │  │  │  ├── controller_spec.rb
│  │  │  │  ├── finder
│  │  │  │  │  ├── buffer_finder_spec.rb
│  │  │  │  │  └── file_finder_spec.rb
│  │  │  │  ├── matcher_spec.rb
│  │  │  │  └── scanner
│  │  │  │  ├── buffer_scanner_spec.rb
│  │  │  │  └── file_scanner_spec.rb
│  │  │  ├── spec_helper.rb
│  │  │  └── vim_formatter.rb
│  │  └── vendor
│  │  ├── vimball
│  │  └── vimscriptuploader
│  ├── dotfiles
│  │  ├── danhdang.zsh-theme
│  │  └── gnome-terminal-colors-solarized
│  └── vim-colors-solarized
│  ├── autoload
│  │  └── togglebg.vim
│  ├── bitmaps
│  │  └── togglebg.png
│  ├── colors
│  │  └── solarized.vim
│  ├── doc
│  │  ├── solarized.txt
│  │  └── tags
│  └── README.mkd
└── colors
└── solarized.vim
31 directories, 72 files
Hi again Rafael,
Sorry this take a while to try to find any reasonable solution, but…
Try to start vim with -N paramater, like:
Do you get then errors?
Can you also add some information how to get Solarized in MATE terminal?
When I use the GNOME script I get
Hi Martin,
I added Solarized Mate Terminal guide. This should work with Mate-Terminal >=1.6. I tested this with Mate-Terminal 1.6.2.
Hi JR,
option N produced working solarized colors and no error. So I just added
set nocompatible
to my ~/.vimrc and its working great! Thanks a lot!
Hi JR,
option N produced working solarized colors and no error. So I just added
set nocompatible
to my ~/.vimrc and its working great! Thanks a lot!
But, isnt vim supposed to start in nocompatible mode if ~/.vimrc exists?
Hi Rafael,
Yes, it should start nocompatible mode if ~/.vimrc exists. From docs:
Hi, thanks for collecting “solarizing” methods for different programmes. I was wondering if there’s a way to make whole Netbeans solarized, not only the editor? Because the reason I use dark solarized theme is that it causes less strain to my eyes. And if only the editor part is solarized, the rest of the white parts causes a painful contrast. Can you point me to some ways to do that? Thanks!
Hi freyja,
Just checked options to get dark theme to whole Netbeans and looks like there is not too many options. You can search “Dark Look and Feel Themes” plugin and install it or you can install Dark Nimbus Theme Plugin (works also with Netbeans 7.4). Both match Norway Today color profile, but is still usable with Solarized too.
Solarized Netbeans would be awesome. I personally always try to use IDEs, but finally end up using Vi/Vim. Same editor locally and remote machines works like a charm.
Hi, thanks for quick response. I checked these Dark Themes plugins, they are were nice, but I couldn’t stand that the backgrounds of windows (e.g. project tree) differ from solarized editor background. So I changed the entire gtk config and then used Gtk+ theme in Netbeans. How well will this look depends on how good your gtk config is. My Netbeans does not look satisfactorily yet, it will need some adjustments, but Pidgin is ravising (I also used Pidgin Gtk+ styling plugin for things I didn’t have patience to look for in gtk).
You can download gtk solarized theme for example from (I needed to use https link to download). You need to replace file ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and ~/.config/gtk3.0/gtk.css with downloaded files (make a copy first!). This theme has thick frames around bars etc. so you might want to change 2 to 1 in some places. Note that it affects many places, for example browser input controls (but I like it this way).
Unfortunatelly there is no much support for altering gtk configuration. Especially gtk2 might be hard to use, gtk3 utilises css for styling. But you can use for “debugging”.
All the best,
freyja.
Hi again freyja,
I know what you mean by difference between project tree and editor background, it looks ugly. If you use only solarized editor and see just Dark Metal UI elements, then it’s not so bad, but difference between backgrounds is not nice at all.
It’s really nice idea use solarized gtk theme. Another way is of course create real Solarized theme for whole Netbeans. :)
Hello. Thanks for the tips.
I added
hi Normal ctermbg=NONE
to my .vimrc to disable a sort of text background that was occurring in vim in both konsole and xfce4-terminal.
By the way, here is the MATE discussion about solarized: https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-terminal/issues/60
I purged mate-terminal and installed gnome-terminal instead. :D
In KDE, you can make your color scheme Solarized – System settings -> Application appearance -> Colors -> Get new schemes. Type Solarized in search box, choose light or dark and apply.
Would you mind adding instructions for installing a solarized theme for ?
This terminal is the default for , which at the moment I’m writing this, is 12th most popular distro at .
Would you mind adding instructions for installing a solarized theme for ROXTerm?
This terminal is the default for LXLE Linux,, which at the moment I’m writing this, is 12th most popular distro at Distrowatch.
I found one repo for it at https://gist.github.com/weakish/923039