lynx black background cannot be overridden

Binary package hint: lynx-cur

lynx displays web pages with a black background and white, yellow, etc. text. I find this unreadable on my monitor.

This should be something the local admin can deal with. Inspecting /etc/lynx-cur/lynx.cfg one sees how to configure lynx to control foreground and background colors, either on a system-wide basis or per-user. The problem is that this doesn't work. Nothing affects the default color scheme. Lynx does read the include files mentioned at the bottom of lynx.cfg, which I proved to myself by inserting an error and producing a lynx diagnostic complaint. But it doesn't seem to act on COLOR commands.

One clue to the problem might be this text from lynx.cfg:

.h2 COLOR
# COLORS (only available if compiled with SVr4 curses or slang)

Possibly lynx wasn't compiled with the required facilities. In any case, the app is not useable as it stands in Ubuntu 9.10.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Dec 2 04:52:42 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: lynx 2.8.7pre6-1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=C
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic
SourcePackage: lynx-cur
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic i686