This post is actually two questions, the first arising out of trying to find an answer for the second.
First, I’m having a problem with Yast2. The secondary screens such as printer setup manage to pick up my system color scheme (white text on black background), but only uses part of it, so that a lot of information is shown in black on black, which is not easily readable How can I fix this?
(I think the problem may derive from Qt, because I’ve had what appears to be the same problem with a few other programs that use Qt, but which aren’t part of the SUSE install.)
I’ve actually had this problem all along, but managed to muddle through by a combination of guessing and using plain Yast. I’m not having any luck with printer setup, though (partly lack of familiarity, since about the only thing I ever print is my income tax forms). Maybe I’m not seeing all the options or instructions: I fill in what I see, but at finish, it says that there’s an error communicating with the printer - even though it must somehow be communicating with it because it detects the printer model (HP DeskJet 805C, on USB). Any suggestion, if it’s something more than not just seeing fields I need to fill in in the setup?
The not so recommended way I’d fix the color issue is by logging into root and setting up the color scheme there.
Then again it’s highly adviced to never log in as root so you could try finding out where your colorprofile is stored and copying it over to the home folder of root (/root).
No need to log in as root you can edit the file as kdesu.
Press Alt+F2 then enter kdesu kwrite /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt
More info Manpage of XCOLORS
EDIT you can also adjust colors with nvidia-settings if you have a nvidia card not sure about ati
@Axeia logging in as root and poking around in /home/username/.kde4 or /root could really mess up things please DON’T
give such advice even with the warning. Some users may well be tempted.
You have clearly no idea where the settings are!
(Apologies for the slow response on this - I had some things going on that kept me off-line.)
Yes, but with just some (a very few) programs, of which the sub-windows of Yast2 are the easiest example. (Another one I remember off the top of my head is a debugger for NVidia GPU code…) Most programs work ok, either following my white text on black background color scheme, or using their own settings for everything. Either of those is acceptable, the problem is when a program tries to mix them…
The various suggestions involving KDE are irrelevant, since I don’t use it or have it installed. (Nor Gnome - I use FVWM as my window manager.) Nor is the Xcolors one relevant: MY colors are the way I want them, it’s just the occasional wild application that seems not to respect them. (Which I think, as I mentioned, is related to Qt.) Even with Yast2, the primary screen is OK (uses all its own colors), it’s only some of the secondary ones like the printer setup that go wild.) I’m wondering if there is perhaps supposed to be a .Qtrc or similar? I know little about Qt, preferring to use less complicated GUI libraries for the little code I write than needs a GUI.
I don’t seem to have a hp-setup program on this machine, either. I did check that it’s not a problem with the printer itself: it works fine when I plug it into my old laptop, which runs a 3-4 year old version of Fedora.
I’d say it’s, a) Your root account color settings that are used as YaST is run as root. b) The colors are hard coded, which would be hard to imagine for something as ‘professional’ as YaST.
You could try configuring the printer via YaST / the terminal though, at least you should see all the fields. (Or temporarily change your own color scheme?)
OK, but where would I find these color settings? Or perhaps I should ask where Yast2 is finding them?
To expand: I boot the machine, log in, and FVWM is started as the window manager, setting my foreground & background colors in the process. Several xterms are started, in which I will do work, with fg & bg colors set in the commands that start them. When I log in as root, I do so from one of those xterms, so the same colors are inherited. (Except for a trick that sets the prompt to red, but that’s encapsulated in the prompt command.) Then I start Yast2 and the main screen comes up with a conventional appearance. Start the sub-function, and it has the messed-up colors: where does it get them?
How can I fix this?