thanks for getting back. You're right it was in the config file, my problem was that I had the font name surrounded by quotes and so it wasn't recognized. This

thanks for getting back. You're right it was in the config file, my problem was that I had the font name surrounded by quotes and so it wasn't recognized. This works: cat .config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini [Settings] gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme=true gtk-font-name = DejaVu Sans Regular 12 ... for some reason ~/.gtkrc-2.0 needs variable values quoted, but gtk-3.0 doesn't.