I vastly prefer suntan background and blackish font. White on black makes my eyes tired.
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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Every terminal program I used allows you to set its colours independent of the global theme.
Not black text on white, but light grey/purple on dark grey was pretty popular with Sun Microsystems. I think OG Apple Macintosh used Black on White, or at least close enough colors.
That said I use something like this for work.
Are there any sickos that use black text on white?
hello!
black text on white with comic sans. lol
I can see comic sans making it more usable
it helps if you're middle aged and some characters like "l", "1" and "I" look too much alike for comfort.
Green text on a black background with a background image that makes the terminal window look like it has scan lines.
And I think all programs should follow user theming, regardless of desktop environment, widget set, or anything else. ('Scuse me while I give GTK4 the stinkeye again.) You can never tell whether someone's colour selection is a matter of accessibility rather than just personal preference, so you absolutely should not ignore it. Defaults matter very little as long as you can change them.
Yeah, stopthemingmy.app feels crazy to me to be coming from the open-source community.
This is a great explanation of what drove me away from Gnome into the loving arms of KDE. I used to be a Gnome 2 die hard. I don't like Gnome 3, but I'm still glad it exists because some of you guys do.
I need a certain level of customizability.
I first read this as…
Stop them in my app.
I did the same thing the other day when I saw "winedlloverrides" (for the program Wine if that helps).
This is why we ask respectfully that our applications not be themed.
Ok, just skimmed the page, but if I read it right, your apps are for screenshots, not people. That's a choice, but ok, I wasn't going to use them anyway, judging from the screenshots. May I suggest renaming the site pleasedontusemy.app, for clarity?
I expect more of this kind of nonsense as more and more people come to Linux.
I like to use white on a transparent/glossy color.
Kind of like this (very old pic I know):
from a design perspective, consistency is key. light mode is on? then light mode means light mode, and apps should be in light mode.
do you want both your terminal to be dark theme and your gtk apps (including all of the gnome UI) to be light theme at the same time?
do you want settings within every single app in order to change from light mode to dark mode, as opposed to a global toggle that applies to every UI on your computer?
alternatively, is the terminal the only exception to this global toggle, and this design inconsistency by having the default contradict the default of the rest of your desktop environment is your preference?
That's exactly how I like it. Terminal, white text on black background. Browser, etc in light mode.
xfce4-terminal (which is standalone btw) has a "follow system theme" setting. This is something they do right.
Pure black background makes it unreadable for me. When I encountered this on websites, i use the Firefox function to turn it into a black on white background theme, so my eyes don't hurt reading longer text. Same logic applies to the terminal, especially when programming. I think pure black as a background shouldn't be default. However I do actually appreciate darker tones as background, but its never pure black. It depends on the combination of colors for text (and on the rest of the system theme).
Are there any sickos that use black text on white?
Hi.
I think the other way around: I read black letters on white paper when I read a book; why shouldn't it be the same on a screen? I find the black background more fatiguing for the eyes.
The only reason computers had a black background was with picture tubes the flyback signal would trigger if the luminesce level was high causing the picture to roll.
Once they'd fixed that (eg MacIntosh), they went back to white.
why shouldn’t it be the same on a screen?
ooh ooh I know!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RGB_color_model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model
On paper, you use the subtractive colour model, so the light is reflected off the page, and the text is taking away from what's reflected.
On a screen, you use the additive colour model, so seeing brighter colours means more lights have to be shined directly into your eyes.
If you are finding white/bright text on dark backgrounds difficult to read, adjust your font size settings/thicknesses or check your eyesight out.
Most studies I read have light background (and dark text) as the preferable choice. Most people use too high a brightness setting.
A book doesn't actively shine light at you. That being said, all colours are beautiful. Don't shame peoples taste or use-cases. Default background color should simply change with the dark mode setting.
Try having astigmatism, white text on a black background is physically painful
Green on white?
I do have astigmatism funnily enough
I can use the terminal in short bursts, but switching to black text on a white background just looks wrong. I might just have to suffer >.<
astigmatist with shitty glasses here. Make your font bolder or bigger
I've got a feeling I've tried bigger, but not bolder. I'll try them both, thanks :)
also try thiner and more asymetrical (dyslexic style) fonts too.
I have astigmatism and the only time this gets problematic is when I don't adjust the brightness accordingly for dark mode.
I'll give that a try, thanks :)
Are there any sickos that use black text on white?
IIRC that’s the default on macOS if the theme is in light mode instead of dark mode. So probably.
I'll occasionally switch to that as it shows up better on projection screens for presentations, but it's not my default.
I change mine to white text on blue background a la Commodore 64.
Black on light grey. AmigaOS represent
Works best with an authentic font: https://gitlab.com/Screwtapello/topaz-unicode
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It makes sense to use the same setting for this, at least by default, as for dark and light mode in general. Why would you want your terminal dark but your email client bright?
Because when you're terminaling, you're hacking, hence dark. When you're emailing, you're officeing, hence light.
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tbh i prefer white on grey or red on yellow tho, white on black is kinda hard to look at for long. black on white is good but many programs these days output very bright coloured text, almost impossible to read on white bg.
iirc black on white is also the default on xterm
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