On my Ubuntu installation, I noticed applications using GTK1 (for me, the most important being XMMS) had really ugly fonts.
To change this, I had to change the /etc/gtk/gtkrc.utf-8. Here's my new one:
style "default-text" {
fontset = "-monotype-arial-bold-r-normal--12-120-*-75-*--iso10646-1,\
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--14-*-75-75-*--*-"
# fontset = "-*-arial-medium-r-normal--*-120-*--*--iso10646-1,\
# -*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--*-120-*--*--*-"
}
class "GtkWidget" style "default-text"
The commented lines are the original ones. Note that if you use other character codings than UTF-8, you have to change another file.
The font descriptions strings are unix standard font description. These are adapted for my screen, so you might want to use other resolutions. To find the right string,
xfontsel is the tool you want to use. If you're fiddling around with font descriptions the first time, I suggest starting with the following settings:
weight = bold
slant = r
sWdth = normal
ptSz = 120 or 100 (but not '*')
Then, try changing
fmly.
I often use
xlsfonts to check for specific fonts.
xlsfonts | grep PATTERN is excellent for finding fonts.
