Change the xterm background color for ICEWM

Although IceWM configuration is originally text-based, there are GUI-based tools available, notably icewm-utils in the AUR. However these tools are relatively old and most users prefer to simply edit the text configuration files. Configuration changes from defaults can be made either system wide (in /etc/icewm/) or on a user-specific basis (in ~/.icewm/).

To change your icewm configuration from the default, simply copy the default configuration files from /usr/share/icewm/ to ~/.icewm/, for example:

Note: Do this as a regular user, not as root.

$ mkdir ~/.icewm/
$ cp -R /usr/share/icewm/* ~/.icewm/

• preferences is the core configuration file for IceWM.
• menu controls the contents of the IceWM application menu.
• keys allows the user to customize keyboard shortcuts
• toolbar row of launcher icons on the taskbar
• winoptions behavior of individual applications
• theme theme path/name
• startup script or command (must be executable) executed on startup
• shutdown the same for shutdown

Method 1:

open /etc/icewm/ or $HOME/.icewm/ directory

find file preferences, change following line

#  Terminal emulator must accept -e option.

 TerminalCommand="xterm -bg black"

Method 2:

create a  ~./Xdefaults if not exist

type this into file: 

XTerm*background: black
XTerm*foreground: grey88

Change the font color of the prompt with PS1 in ~/.bashrc