I guess `autoload -U colors ; colors' is left from an older version.
Imho it's, due to the use of `/etc/grml/lsb-functions', obsolete.

In association to that, how eager are we to switch this function to
/bin/dash?
IMHO the only zsh-feature used is `repeat 15 echo -n' which can easily
be substituted by a for-loop in dash.
But then check4progs doesn't work either, I guess. So we would have to
test for the needed programs in a more classic way, à la [[ -x ]] or
by a local function check4progs.