This article run with xubuntu too. :)
See below the --------- for the just-the-facts-ma'am version.
Recently I installed Mint 3 for a friend and his wife. I created his account first, and set up the xfce4 desktop. This was an install of the Cassandra/Gnome CD, but instead of using Gnome as the default I chose Xfce4 because it's much faster.
So I set up his profile entirely, and then created her account and set it up, and made it as identical as possible with panels and launchers and everything.
Only after I brought the computer to their home did I discover that his font was frozen, looked like Bitstream Vera Sans 7. I was able to change her profile font no problem, but the graphical login screen gdm font was the same as his font. Small and squnchy.
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So with xfce4 on Mint 3.0 (Cassandra) the gdm graphical login screen and first profile had an unchangeable small font. The second profile had no problem with changing fonts.
I haven't tried this on the problem computer yet, but I have used it on my own computer to change the font on the gdm login box and once login is complete to the xfce4 desktop the menu font and dialog font is the same as the gdm login font.
$ cd /usr/share/themes/Xfce/gtk-2.0
$ sudo cp gtkrc gtkrc.backup
$ sudo mousepad gtkrc
At the top where you see:
style "default"
{
GtkWidget::focus-line-width = 1
Add the line:
font_name="Sans 10"
To get:
style "default"
{
font_name="Sans 10"
GtkWidget::focus-line-width = 1
Save and close the file.
Next:
$ cd /etc/gdm
$ sudo cp gdm.conf-custom gdm.conf-custom.backup
$ sudo mousepad gdm.conf-custom
Under [gui] add the line:
GtkRC=/usr/share/themes/Xfce/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
So you'll have:
[gui]
GtkRC=/usr/share/themes/Xfce/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
Save and close the file.
Log out, and at the prompt, press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to
restart the Xorg server. Now the font for login should be
Sans 10 and your default font for menus and such should be
Sans 10 when you enter.
Now change the font settings in the Xfce desktop gui.
Settings > Settings Manger > User Interface
Change the font to Sans 10
Settings > Settings Manager > Desktop > Behavior
Un-check and re-check the Use system font size
so that icons use the same font.
This example uses the Xfce theme. You might be using another theme, so change the directory accordingly, e.g.
GtkRC=/usr/share/themes/Crux/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
for the Crux theme.
Naturally, to use another font or size you'd have to replace "Sans 10" with some other font and size that worked for you.
Hopefully this will fix it. I'll confirm whether this worked or not once I have a chance to try it on the problem computer.
For the record, I never save the session on logout.
crusti
