debian By default, the LS version of Debian uses a regular blue color for the directories. And, as many others, I'm completely unable to read this on a black background. So, to change this, do the following for each user, or globally in /etc/bash.bashrc:

# dircolors -p > ~/.dircolorsrc

This creates a dircolor file in /root/.dircolorsrc that you can edit with any text editor.

With vim, open the file and find the line “DIR” and change its color value from 34 (blue) to 33 (yellow).

# vim /root/.dircolorsrc

[...]

53 # Below are the color init strings for the basic file types. A color init 
 54 # string consists of one or more of the following numeric codes: 
 55 # Attribute codes: 
 56 # 00=none 01=bold 04=underscore 05=blink 07=reverse 08=concealed 
 57 # Text color codes: 
 58 # 30=black 31=red 32=green 33=yellow 34=blue 35=magenta 36=cyan 37=white 
 59 # Background color codes: 
 60 # 40=black 41=red 42=green 43=yellow 44=blue 45=magenta 46=cyan 47=white 
 61 NORMAL 00 # global default, although everything should be something. 
 62 FILE 00 # normal file 
 63 DIR 01;33 # directory 
 64 LINK 01;36 # symbolic link. (If you set this to 'target' instead of a 
 65  # numerical value, the color is as for the file pointed to.) 
 66 FIFO 40;33 # pipe 
 67 SOCK 01;35 # socket 
 68 DOOR 01;35 # door 
 69 BLK 40;33;01 # block device driver 
 70 CHR 40;33;01 # character device driver 
 71 ORPHAN 40;31;01 # symlink to nonexistent file, or non-stat'able file 
 72 SETUID 37;41 # file that is setuid (u+s) 
 73 SETGID 30;43 # file that is setgid (g+s) 
 74 STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE 30;42 # dir that is sticky and other-writable (+t,o+w) 
 75 OTHER_WRITABLE 34;42 # dir that is other-writable (o+w) and not sticky 
 76 STICKY 37;44 # dir with the sticky bit set (+t) and not other-writable 
 77 # This is for files with execute permission: 
 78 EXEC 01;32

In you local ~/.bashrc file, modify the line eval “`dircolors`” into eval “`dircolors -b ~/.dircolorsrc`”.

# vim /root/.bashrc

[...]

# You may uncomment the following lines if you want `ls' to be colorized:
eval "`dircolors -b ~/.dircolorsrc`"
export LS_OPTIONS='--color=auto'

That's it. Close your current session and open a new one to reload bash and the output of your LS commands will now show directories in yellow.

~~DISCUSSION~~