Synaptic fonts unreadable with these old eyes

[DoYouKubuntu]

I've set, and reset, Synaptic's preferences for fonts, and applied them, and closed Synaptic and reopened it, and no matter what, its *TINY* near-unreadable fonts persist.

This is after a botched upgrade attempt, ending with a clean reinstall of 14.04.

Please, someone, tell me how to make Synaptic obey my font preferences! I started looking through various dot directories in $HOME but gave up.

[Snowhog]

See https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...ght=tiny+fonts

[DoYouKubuntu]

See https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...ght=tiny+fonts

I did. It didn't.

Here's the output from the CLI effort:

$ kdesudo systemsettings5
Bus::open: Can not get ibus-daemon's address. <-- this happened because I was being prompted for my sudo password in a GUI window
IBusInputContext::createInputContext: no connection to ibus-daemon  <-- and this
$ kdesudo systemsettings5 <-- so I tried again after giving my password, got an error beep, nothing came up
$ echo $?
1  <-- and it failed
$

I had already done what the second post in that thread said.

I have NEVER, EVER had to set Synaptic's font settings as root. Ever. On this same laptop with the same version of K it had before the failed upgrade attempt, I most definitely set Synaptic's fonts as my normal user, not root. I'm very confused...

[Snowhog]

Try the route that vinny posted in that thread.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Try the route that vinny posted in that thread.

Um... "I had already done what the second post in that thread said."

[Snowhog]

Okay. Try the systemsettings5 route again, but launch it without sudo.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Okay. Try the systemsettings5 route again, but launch it without sudo.

$ systemsettings5
No command 'systemsettings5' found, did you mean:
Command 'systemsettings' from package 'systemsettings' (universe)
systemsettings5: command not found
$ systemsettings
QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave.
QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave.
Bus::open: Can not get ibus-daemon's address. 
IBusInputContext::createInputContext: no connection to ibus-daemon 
$ X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) 3
 Major opcode: 20 (X_GetProperty)
 Resource id:  0x140004b
^C
$

It launched System Settings, with my pointer over and highlighting "Application and System Notifications." There's nothing there relating to this... My font settings [in System Settings] are the same as before, since my /home partition wasn't touched during the reinstall.

What is "systemsettings[5]" supposed to do?

[Snowhog]

Okay. Once again, try: kdesudo systemsettings

[DoYouKubuntu]

Okay. Once again, try: kdesudo systemsettings

Sorry you're getting annoyed, SH! Wasn't my intent.

That worked! Thank you so much.

ETA: Can anyone explain WHY this was necessary? In all the years I've used Synaptic, this was a first for me. I have always simply changed its preferences while logged in as a normal user. I did not need anything to do with root, sudo, kdesudo, System Settings, etc. Note that this laptop is the same one, with the same version of Kubuntu, installed from the same DVD as before the failed upgrade and reinstallation of 14.04. So what happened?

[Snowhog]

I don't get annoyed trying to help others here. It's what I do and am here for.

systemsettings5 replaced systemsettings, but not until later. Kubuntu 14.04 uses systemsettings.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I don't get annoyed trying to help others here. It's what I do and am here for.

Okay, thanks.

systemsettings5 replaced systemsettings, but not until later. Kubuntu 14.04 uses systemsettings.

Yes, but WHY was sudo necessary? I've always, from within Synaptic, set its fonts, applied them, and that was that. How long has Synaptic been around? That's how long I've been doing it that way!

[Snowhog]

Can't answer that; I don't know. The underlying components 'get changed', and the change(s) often have unexpected consequences (from the users standpoint). So, this issues is SOLVED?

[chimak111]

If you opened Synaptic directly, you may have had to provide your password.

If you want to use systemsettings to alter properties of applications run with elevated privileges, you required kdesudo systemsettings.

[DoYouKubuntu]

If you opened Synaptic directly, you may have had to provide your password.

Yes, as I've done since Synaptic's creation.

If you want to use systemsettings to alter properties of applications run with elevated privileges, you required kdesudo systemsettings.

As noted, in all the years I've been using Synaptic, it has never before been necessary to alter its fonts by being root and changing system fonts.

Again, I've always run Synaptic as a normal user, entered my password, then changed its font settings within Synaptic.

By the way, I've used Kubuntu since 5.04.

[jlittle]

...in all the years I've been using Synaptic, it has never before been necessary to alter its fonts...

Synaptic is a GTK application, and as such it is subject to the "slings and arrows of outrageous" Gnome. It seems to me that getting KDE to theme GTK 3 apps properly is hard work. I suspect it's Gnome, or GTK, 3 that's caused you trouble.

I much prefer Muon. It's been a bit rough in recent years, but not so bad at the moment. I really like that it doesn't ask for privilege until it needs it, as I'm usually using it to investigate packages.