Good lord. This is more complicated than repairing my messed up video configuration. I've spent hours now scanning web sites for various themes. I figured out that I was using the wrong stuff from Gnome-look, so at least now the themes are installing properly and not generating error messages. That said, everything invariably looks like crap. Screenshots show dark toolbars, beveled edges and sleek looks. The reality is klunky, ugly, flat, and usually some washed-out off-while colour.

How do I change the colours of things, anyway? Menus, window borders, controls, that sort of thing? Do I need a theme to do that for me? Or is there something in preferences that I can't find because I'm a tool?

Fonts are another interesting thing. I customized them, but it seems to have made little difference outside the font configuration window itself. Everything else still looks exactly the same. I had to set my audio capture preference three times before Alsa would take it, so maybe this is the same sort of thing?

Am I correct in thinking that I need to get a GTK theme and a Metacity theme separately? That seems to be where the "theme details" thing comes in. All the stuff in the Metacity themes category changes only the top bar of the windows and the buttons on it; everything else looks exactly the same. I read up on what exactly Metacity is on Wikipedia (I know, I know...), and I think I'm beginning to understand why. When I get some GTK themes I can start to change the look of controls and menus and such, and that also makes sense to me. Thing is though, they never look anything like the example the author is giving, and I can't figure out why.

Most of these are rhetorical questions; I don't expect y'all to take loads more of your time in coaching me through this, but of course, if you're bored, it's always appreciated. I figured it might be interesting, though, to have a log of this stuff written by someone who's going through it all for the first time. So far, it's pretty damned annoying. And, still, I find I'm willing to plod on and figure it out...