Gnome

Disable desktop icons

With gconf-editor, go under apps->nautilus->desktop and uncheck every unwanted icon

Change the start button

  • run gconf-editor
  • navigate to /app/panel/objects
  • find a object_x with the object_type=menu-object
  • tick up use_custom_icon 4
  • change custom_icon value to the image path.

Select a specific pixmap

Edit .gtkrc or .gtkrc-2.0 and insert pixmap_path = "/path/to/the/pixmap/directory/" at the beginning of the file

Change gtk theme (2.0)

Theme must be in /usr/share/themes or under ~/.themes/ . Edit .gtkrc or/and .gtkrc-2.0 adding:

gtk-theme-name = “theme_name”

for the icon theme (it must be under ~/.icons or in /usr/share/icons):

gtk-icon-theme-name = “name_theme_directory”

for the mouse pointer theme

gtk-cursor-theme-name = “theme_name”