changing colors on linux framebuffer consoles

[Rick Engebretson]

I'm working with SuSE 8.0 with the kernel vesa framebuffer graphics driver 
on an i686 platform. Ncurses, mc, the gpm mouse work nicely on the virtual 
consoles. But trying to tweak ncurses console colors with "init_color()" 
doesn't work, and "can_change_color()" returns false. I've tried a few 
different "TERM=" settings without much change from the default "linux" 
TERM value. The ncurses man page for color states that RGB values can't be 
changed on i386, i486 vga platforms. I have the bundled ncurses 5.2-262 
installed and am going through the ncurses 5.2 and 5.4 source to see where 
the hangup is.

I understand why vga colors were a problem, but the framebuffer driver is 
very different. Directly writing bit streams to the device file /dev/fb0 
produces some lovely colors. High resolution, high color definition text 
consoles are important for instrumentation controls. CGA colors are too 
brash for many environments.

Any advice is appreciated.
Rick Engebretson