cursor change in gnome

manolos · 2009-06-27 19:48:49

hi i want to change my cursor but i dont know how. i use emerald theme manager. (i cant use any cursor from "Appearance Preferences>Customize>Pointer" because i dont use this theme manager anymore)
thanks

finferflu · 2009-06-27 19:50:14

Emereald has nothing to do with your cursor theme (it's a window border manager). You should use the one in the Appearence menu.

manolos · 2009-06-27 19:52:41

finferflu wrote:

Emereald has nothing to do with your cursor theme (it's a window border manager). You should use the one you in the Appearence menu.

i dont know why but the pointer doesnt change from there. is there any other way to change the cursor? i said about emerald because whene i used it for the very first time my cursor changed to default

finferflu · 2009-06-27 19:53:29

That is odd. Have you tried restarting your GNOME session?

manolos · 2009-06-27 19:54:26

yes. but nothing... its weird and annoying

Teoulas · 2009-06-28 10:25:56

Do you use compiz fusion? With metacity the cursor changes instantly, but with compiz fusion, it only changes after you restart X.

manolos · 2009-06-28 12:34:10

Teoulas wrote:

Do you use compiz fusion? With metacity the cursor changes instantly, but with compiz fusion, it only changes after you restart X.

thanks! i didnt know that i have to restart! now i have my old favorite cursor!
my cursor doesn apear in gdm. only whene i login to gnome. why? pes mou re filaraki! XD

Last edited by manolos (2009-06-28 12:36:27)

harryNID · 2009-06-29 23:12:55

HI "manolos"

The probable reason is because your cursor is loaded in your local user ".icons" folder (as it should be). It only starts when your user session starts aka "When GNOME starts". GDM is system-wide so you would have to set it (your cursor theme) system-wide. Basically make it the default cursor for the system. When you do this it should show up in both. You should really only do this on a computer that you are not sharing with anybody else as they might not appreciate your cursor being the default one. They would be in they same boat you are in now. That should also answer your question as to "Why".

With that said:

Here's how to manually set up your cursor to be the default system-wide (default) cursor. Be aware, I'm doing this from memory as I'm not currently running GNOME right now. This also works for Fluxbox btw. (which I am running right now).

1) Become root (however you choose to do so).
2) Open up your local home folder (not root's home folder) and click "Show Hidden" files.
3) Go to your .icon folder and you should find your cursor theme folder.
4) Copy that whole folder to /usr/share/icons/.
5) Staying in /usr/share/icons/ and If it's not already there create a new folder called "default".
6) Inside "default" create a file called "index.theme". Again, if there is already a default folder with a file called index.theme then all we have to do is modify that. You won't have to create one in that circumstance. Also make a backup copy of the original index.theme just in case you ever want the original cursor back.
7) You now have to open Gedit or another text editor "with root privileges" as we will be saving this to /usr which belongs to root. GNOME sees index.themes as theme files and not as a text file so unfortunately you have to manually open this file. Now open /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme/ and either add this or modify the original.

[icon theme]
Inherits=Name_of_Your_Cursor_Theme

You have to be sure you get the right "Name_of_Your_Cursor_Theme". This info is located in your cursor's index.theme file inside the cursor folder. Just open that up (again manually) and copy everything after "Name=". Paste that after "Inherits=" and you should be good to go.

Example:
Here is my cursor's index.theme info:

[Icon Theme]
Name=Neutral_X
Comment=Neutral by nikaa ZyXEL modified by harryNID
Example=left_ptr

so my /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme/ would look like this:

[icon theme]
Inherits=Neutral_X

8) Save and restart X (log out/in).
9) Optional: Since it's in /usr/share/icons/ folder now you can get rid of the local copy in your ~/.icons folder as it's now redundant.

If everything went well your cursor should now be the default cursor and it should show up both in GDM and GNOME.

Good Luck
harryNID

manolos · 2009-06-30 18:43:10

harryNID wrote:

HI "manolos"
The probable reason is because your cursor is loaded in your local user ".icons" folder (as it should be). It only starts when your user session starts aka "When GNOME starts". GDM is system-wide so you would have to set it (your cursor theme) system-wide. Basically make it the default cursor for the system. When you do this it should show up in both. You should really only do this on a computer that you are not sharing with anybody else as they might not appreciate your cursor being the default one. They would be in they same boat you are in now. That should also answer your question as to "Why".
With that said:
Here's how to manually set up your cursor to be the default system-wide (default) cursor. Be aware, I'm doing this from memory as I'm not currently running GNOME right now. This also works for Fluxbox btw. (which I am running right now).
1) Become root (however you choose to do so).
2) Open up your local home folder (not root's home folder) and click "Show Hidden" files.
3) Go to your .icon folder and you should find your cursor theme folder.
4) Copy that whole folder to /usr/share/icons/.
5) Staying in /usr/share/icons/ and If it's not already there create a new folder called "default".
6) Inside "default" create a file called "index.theme". Again, if there is already a default folder with a file called index.theme then all we have to do is modify that. You won't have to create one in that circumstance. Also make a backup copy of the original index.theme just in case you ever want the original cursor back.
7) You now have to open Gedit or another text editor "with root privileges" as we will be saving this to /usr which belongs to root. GNOME sees index.themes as theme files and not as a text file so unfortunately you have to manually open this file. Now open /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme/ and either add this or modify the original.
[icon theme]
Inherits=Name_of_Your_Cursor_Theme
You have to be sure you get the right "Name_of_Your_Cursor_Theme". This info is located in your cursor's index.theme file inside the cursor folder. Just open that up (again manually) and copy everything after "Name=". Paste that after "Inherits=" and you should be good to go.
Example:
Here is my cursor's index.theme info:
[Icon Theme]
Name=Neutral_X
Comment=Neutral by nikaa ZyXEL modified by harryNID
Example=left_ptr
so my /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme/ would look like this:
[icon theme]
Inherits=Neutral_X
8) Save and restart X (log out/in).
9) Optional: Since it's in /usr/share/icons/ folder now you can get rid of the local copy in your ~/.icons folder as it's now redundant.
If everything went well your cursor should now be the default cursor and it should show up both in GDM and GNOME.
Good Luck
harryNID

thank you very much! worked great! now i have my cursor theme and in gdm login screen!

cb474 · 2010-06-28 12:12:41

I've found that the name of the folder for the cursor theme has to match the name in the "Inherits=" line. My index.theme for the DMZ cursor, listed the name as just DMZ, but the folder was labeled "Vanilla-DMZ." The fix didn't work until I changed the name of the folder to "DMZ" to match.

trusktr · 2010-08-13 09:28:33

Awesome! This was the fix I was looking for. The Gnome Appearance Manager won't let you choose mouse pointers correctly when using compiz, so this is the alternate, working method.

trusktr · 2010-08-19 06:23:52

The compiz bug still needs to be fixed (where the user's chosen cursor theme only appears in certain situations).

ArianHT · 2010-09-07 03:05:02

Thanks man!, it helped me too:).

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-27 19:48:49

cursor change in gnome

#2 2009-06-27 19:50:14

Re: cursor change in gnome

#3 2009-06-27 19:52:41

Re: cursor change in gnome

#4 2009-06-27 19:53:29

Re: cursor change in gnome

#5 2009-06-27 19:54:26

Re: cursor change in gnome

#6 2009-06-28 10:25:56

Re: cursor change in gnome

#7 2009-06-28 12:34:10

Re: cursor change in gnome

#8 2009-06-29 23:12:55

Re: cursor change in gnome

#9 2009-06-30 18:43:10

Re: cursor change in gnome

#10 2010-06-28 12:12:41

Re: cursor change in gnome

#11 2010-08-13 09:28:33

Re: cursor change in gnome

#12 2010-08-19 06:23:52

Re: cursor change in gnome

#13 2010-09-07 03:05:02

Re: cursor change in gnome

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