ls can have nice colors enabled to differentiate between file types easily, but the parameter is different between the BSD version (uses --color) and the GNU Linux version (uses -G). I have been setting up a “bash_profile”, among other things, to be shared between my users on all the POSIX computers I use. Some are Linux, some BSD based. I use Bash on both, and I wanted the colors from ls to be used on both with the shared “bash_profile” file. I couldn’t find anyone else’s solution for this, so I figured one out myself and will post it in case others want the same versatility. I simply test ls with one of the parameters and see if it throws an error. I then can set my aliases with the appropriate parameter. I do it like so:
ls --color > /dev/null 2>&1
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
alias l="ls -F --color"
alias ll="ls -lh --color"
else
alias l="ls -FG"
alias ll="ls -lhG"
fi