How do I make XTerm not use bold?

Question

I like using XTerm, I like its default "fixed" font, and I like using terminal colors rather than having a monochromatic terminal.

However, XTerm seems to insist on using a bold version of the font whenever it's displaying a bright color:

I hate the bold version of the font, but I like the brightness. The man page seems to suggest that adding "XTerm.VT100.boldMode:false" to my ~/.Xresources would disable this "feature", but it doesn't seem to have any effect. I've had it in there for months, so it's not a rebooting issue.

How can I force XTerm to always use the standard, non-bold version of the fixed font, even when it's displaying bright text?

Edit: Some have suggested putting "XTerm*boldMode: false" in my ~/.Xresources. That didn't help either. I've confirmed that the changes have taken effect with xrdb, though:

$ xrdb -query | grep boldMode 
XTerm*boldMode: false

If I run xprop and click an xterm, I get "WM_CLASS(STRING) = "xterm", "XTerm"" .. so I'm definitely running real xterms.

BTW, this is just a plain-vanilla Ubuntu Intrepid box. If anyone else here is running the same, can you try running:

echo -e '#\e[1m#'

...and let me know whether the # on the right has a black pixel in the middle like the one on the left does?

Answer 1

If you set the same font for bold and normal font it might work.

I set the fixed font for both like:

xterm*font: fixed
xterm*boldFont: fixed

And after the usual xrdb -load and starting a new term it were back to not being bold :)

Answer 2

X resources aren't reloaded until you reload the X windowing system, and they aren't polled unless you restart the executable which is doing it. Try running

xrdb ~/.Xresources

in your current session. Then start another xterm. The next time you start X (relogin or reboot) the resources should be read automatically.

Another thing to try is to use a wildcard to make sure that it is picking up the resource correctly. Use

XTerm*boldMode: false

instead.

Yet another thing to check is that you are actually running xterm when you run a terminal process. If not, you will need to change the fonts with a different resource.

Answer 3

It's an xterm bug:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=347790

A temporary fix which works for me is to put the following cludgy fix at the end of your .bashrc file:

 echo -e "\e[1mA\e[2J\e[7mB\e[m\e[?5h\e[?5l"
 clear

Answer 4

Check if the setting has taken effect:

xrdb -query | grep XTerm

If it is not in there, then you can force it to load:

xrdb -load ~/.Xresources

See the man page for more on this command.

Answer 5

I found it necessary (on Lucid Lynx) to create ~/.Xdefaults-$(hostname). Omitting hostname made settings ineffective. ba's matching of font and boldFont did the trick of eliminating bold. xfontsel is a nice way to figure out what font to specify there. You can also start an xterm with something like xterm -font '-misc-fixed-medium-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*' to test that your defaults are taking effect.