How many colors?

I was wondering if there was any way I could get 256 colors - or more ..
when running ncurses applications on a linux console with the frame
buffer enabled.  There are a few applications that greatly benefit from
this enhancement such as mutt, vim, ELinks .. and I was wondering if
this is possible when not running in an xterm under xorg. 

Maybe I need to run a terminal emulator that supports more than 16
colors rather than the standard linux console?

Rather confused about these aspects, so any pointers to doc or a
discussion of these capabilities would be very welcome.

Thank you!

gavron




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