for whatever reason it isn't working for me, here is what the screen looks like after replacing the gtkrc file:



i'm at a total loss here. i'm going to try to restore everything to defaults. if that is successful, i will try starting from scratch.

again, if someone could post a step by step from lauching xterm to completion, i would appreciate it. i like the increased functionality of the smaller fonts, but i need some type of skin. here is what it looks like right now:



UPDATE:

so, i got all the defaults set up properly. i tested each theme to make sure they worked as if the device as new to ensure all my files were lined up and correct. then, i modified the files according to konttori's instructions. rather than deleting or renaming the file, i created a new directory, .backup and moved gtkrc and gtkrc.cache from that location. then i inserted my vim created copy of konttori's modified gtkrc file. still getting the same issues. i just realized that i have the rootfsext on my device. i gotta try something else now. i think i might have this figured out.

UPDATE: Good god damn. it has nothing to do with the extrootfs. the files are located in the default directories. I saw these directories in /usr/share/themes :

Default
default
theme1
theme2
theme3

various experimentation with all of them yields the same results consistently for me.

Now I will post step by step what i do:


then i get the effect shown above, 11pt font, no skin images, just dull grey boxes. the statusbar is screwed up but restarting resolves that.

am i doing it wrong by writing the html page of gtkrc from kontorri's site to new file in vim? how are you guys doing it? i can't figure out why this wouldn't work. do i need to chmod the permissions perhaps?

ANOTHER UPDATE:

after changing the permissions to gtkrc to -rwxrwxrwx, and changing owner to user, the images for the background on the top bars appear, but the statusbar icons are still wonky, and everything else is that crappy grey.
the only possible issue i can conceive now is that somehow something got messed up in my method of copying the text from kontorri's gtkrc file and inserting same in vim. i would try putting the themes directories in sudoers but i don't think that will make a difference.
the two methods that may resolve this for me:

getting konttori's gtkrc file by some other method, or
some issue related to the customizations i have made previously to the system, ie using r&d mode i modified gainroot to allow me root access to the filesystem, i am using wolframs extrootfs script to use the rs-mmc to make my / ~744MB, i also added su to the sudoers file to allow me to launch a "true" root shell with the command: sudo su -, i also added sbin/swapon and sbin/swapoff to sudoers in order to use the load_plugin_aw to switch swapfile on rs-mmc card on and off easily, no x-term necessary, and finally i may have had swapfile on when originally trying out konttori's modified gtkrc file.