This is a tad off topic, but I don't know where else to turn. I've been writing perl scripts to run on Linux, Irix, and Solaris servers. When I'm using a Linux machine, I use vim with the vim.perl syntax module enabled, and life is wonderful. The color-coding makes the code more legible, and coding is just plain easier. Thing is, when I use a Solaris machine, my results are totally different. Syntax coloring is severely limited, and often doesn't work at all.

Here's the specifics of my environment: I'm using a Red Hat 7.3 box to telnet to various servers. If I use an xterm or gnome-terminal window, I get full syntax coloring from my Linux machines. Connecting to a Solaris machine through a gnome-terminal window, I get no syntax color. If I manually :set syntax, I see that some of the text is bolded, and some underlined, but it's all the same color. Using an xterm window to do the same thing, I get only 3 colors used for the syntax. The version of vim on the Linux machine is 6.1.165 and on Solaris it's 6.0.11.

In all cases, I'm using the same .exrc and vim.perl files, and the shell is tcsh. I've tried comparing $ENV and the output of 'set' on the Linux and Solaris machines, and can't see a smoking gun.

Why should gnome-terminal and xterm behave differently when connecting to the same machine? Why is there such a difference in the behavior of the syntax coloring on Solaris? Why should there be such a major change in functionality between the two versions?

I've tried vim.org, the O'Reilly vi book, Red Hat.com, and I googled until my fingers bled. I'm out of ideas, and totally baffled.

Has anyone else faced this? Can someone point me to a solution?

Thanks,

-Logan
"What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."

Repaired RH.com link at author's req. - dvergin 2003-02-12