It was because of xterm. The file /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm was modified from RH9 to FC3 (maybe to other Fedoras also, I'm not sure) and as a result the bold and underline attributes were not colored in xterm (for example man pages were not colored). The solution is to put this in your .Xdefaults: *VT100*colorMode: on *VT100*boldColors: on *VT100*dynamicColors: on *VT100*colorULMode: on *VT100*underLine: off *VT100*colorBDMode: on *VT100*colorAttrMode: on *VT100*colorUL: green3 *VT100*colorBD: blue3 which was in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm by default in RH9, but not FC3. And then make sure .Xdefaults is loaded, for example put in your .Xclients the following: xrdb ~/.Xdefaults And then you will have colored man pages and colored text in other places where the bold/underlined attribute is used, for example in vi the text -- INSERT -- which indicates that we are in insert mode, will also be blue.
