color-vim refuses to colorize if TERM is set to xterm. It will only do so if TERM is set to rxvt. Since rxvt now sets it TERM to xterm (which is a good thing, IMHO), I think color-vim should colorize when TERM is set to xterm. As it is now, I have to have this in my .vimrc: if &term=="xterm" set term=rxvt set t_Co=8 set t_Sb=^[4%dm set t_Sf=^[3%dm endif (In addition to these lines, which enable the colorizing: syntax on set nocompatible ) I know this is the case in 5.2, it probably applies to 5.9 as well.
color-vim uses ncurses. The default terminfo entry for xterm says it doesn't support color, so color-vim believes it.
I was unable to replicate this problem using vim-color-5.3-3. I set the TERM to several choices such as xterm and rxvt with no change.
There is a setting that has to be added to .vimrc for this to work regardless of TERM type which should not have to be done according to Steve and Bill. This is more of a change request.
vimrc file fixed. this may be a terminfo problem with ncurses. a regular xterm does work with colorvim.