256 colors in vim and screen

PUBLISHED ON NOV 3, 2011 / 0 MIN READ — LINUX, SCREEN, VIM

For some strange reason at least Fedora ships screen and vim with 256 colors disabled. Here’s a quick guide how to enable 256 colors in vim and screen.

  1. Add to you .vimrc file

    set t_Co=256

  2. Add following lines to your .screenrc file

    attrcolor b ".I"
termcapinfo xterm 'Co#256:AB=\E[48;5;%dm:AF=\E[38;5;%dm'
defbce "on"

Also check that your terminal supports or has 256 colors enabled. At least gnome-terminals seems to have this by default. Enjoy combination of vim and screen with 256 colors. :)

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