Comment 4 for bug 59936

Onto the fix now.

All that needs to be done is

#1 set a default font that
a) is actually installed
b) is the same size as the default gtk2 font
c) looks decent without anti-aliasing

Here are two defaults that look pretty good
-adobe-helvetica-medium-o-normal-­ -10-100-75-75-p-57-iso10646-1
-schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal­ -*-*-120-*-*-c-*-iso10646-1

#2 install a gtk1.2 theme either by including it in the libgtk1.2-common package or making libgtk1.2-common dependant on it.

a) interestingly if I install and run 'gtk-theme-switch' from the cli, by default I have a choice of two gtk themes (which is odd because only Default has been installed) - Default (yurk) and IndustrialTango. Previewing IndustrialTango results in:

Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate loadable module in module_path: "libinudustrial.so"

me thinks the gtk-industrial-tango package should have been installed with libgtk1.2!!!
a quick apt-get install gtk-industrial-tango later and we can finally fix up these ugly looking gtk apps

#3 set a system default.
This bit is really easy

simply create a /etc/gtk/gtkrc file and put in it directions for the two different issues.
note this will get overridden by a ~/.gtkrc.mine file so we are not locking users into anything dramatic.
=============================================================
include "/usr/share/themes/IndustrialTango/gtk/gtkrc"

style "default-text" {
fontset = "-adobe-helvetica-medium-o-normal--10-100-75-75-p-57-iso10646-1,\
           -*-r-*-iso10646-1,*"
}

class "*" style "default-text"
=============================================================

save & run any gtk1.2 app - looks a bit better huh???

so in summary here is all that needs to be done to make gtk1.2 apps look decent by default

#1 make the libgtk1.2-common package dependent on the gtk-industrial-tango package (like it should be????)

#2 inlcude the /etc/gtk/gtkrc file as above that we have some sort of a decent system wide default Theme for gtk1.2 apps