vi - 256 colors in vim and How to install new color scheme -

i'm under ubuntu 64 bit 13.04, i'm starting vim , don't understand error i'm getting

error detected while processing distinguished.vim: line 16: distinguished color scheme requires gvim or 256-color terminal press enter or type command continue

as can guess i'm trying use new colorscheme downloaded here , saved under ~/.vim/colors/ , it's understanding .vimrc fine i'm trying do:

colorscheme distinguished 

obiviously have more 256 colors available on system , have millions of colors display, it's , how can make correct use of colorscheme ?

you need terminal application supports 256 colors, , term environment variable points 256-color terminfo. number of colors available terminal has nothing rest of setup :)

try in console:

export term=xterm-256color vim 

it might not work terminal program, recent versions of xterm, does.

terminals vary lot in capabilities; terminals dumb (think of keyboard line printer); narrow, paginated, support underlining, have colours, have unusual keyboard mappings, , on. support of these, there needs database of capabilities each terminal, applications know can , cannot do; that's point of terminfo , of term. declaring term=xterm-256color you're indicating applications terminal supports xterm capabilities including 256 colors. can have in /usr/share/terminfo/ directory see incredible number of terminals supported box, , man terminfo show sheer number of configurable options terminals.