SETVTRGB(8)

📦
version 2.10.0 · 3 versions
, in alpine 3.22, alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💅 NAME 💅

okay so the manual name is setvtrgb, and its whole job is to set the virtual terminal RGB colors 🌈✨

🧚 SYNOPSIS 🧚

setvtrgb [options] vga|FILE|-

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

okay so setvtrgb takes one single argument. it's either the string vga, or a path to a file holding the colors you want the Linux virtual terminals to use 🦋

you can write those colors in decimal or hexadecimal, and it's lowkey smart enough to figure out which one you used at runtime 🧠💖

a decimal FILE needs to be exactly 3 lines of 16 comma-separated decimal values, one line each for RED, GREEN, and BLUE 🍓

to get a valid FILE to start from, run this:

cat /sys/module/vt/parameters/default_{red,grn,blu} > FILE

then just edit the values in FILE and you're giving 💅

a hexadecimal FILE is exactly 16 lines of hex triplets for RED, GREEN and BLUE, each one prefixed with a number sign (#). here's an example that is literally the classic palette 😭🌸

#000000
#AA0000
#00AA00
#AA5500
#0000AA
#AA00AA
#00AAAA
#AAAAAA
#555555
#FF5555
#55FF55
#FFFF55
#5555FF
#FF55FF
#55FFFF
#FFFFFF

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -C, --console=DEV — pick the console device you want to use 🖥️💜
  • -h, --help — shows you the usage message and then exits 🙈
  • -V, --version — prints the version number and then exits 🔢

👑 AUTHORS 👑

the utility was written by Alexey Gladkov, Seth Forshee, and Dustin Kirkland. the whole squad 🫶

📚 DOCUMENTATION 📚

the documentation came from Dustin Kirkland, who is clearly obsessed with this tool 🦋

that's the whole page, bestie! it's from the kbd package, last updated 3 Mar 2011, and it's the SETVTRGB(8) manual page 💖 stay iconic and go make your terminal look fire 🔥🌈

📦 where this page comes from