[Bug 67794] X unusable

[Despair]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: gnome-control-center

~/.fonts.conf makes gnome-settings-daemon freeze up, which causes most gnome applications to render as white noninteractive boxes.
~/.Xmodmap pops up a dialog asking whether it should be loaded every gnome startup.
The combination blocks launching of launcher apps, or anything later in gnome. When not using gnome-session, it's sometimes possible to kill gnome-settings-daemon & start it again a couple of times and eventually it may work, and gnome applications executed afterwards will run, but crash randomly.

Without .Xmodmap, no dialog during early startup, so it sometimes starts
apps successfully but is unstable. Possibly a race in g-s-d?

This is very frustrating, as I use custom settings in fonts.conf for
non-gnome apps, and they work fine... I use equivalent settings in the
font properties in gnome.

Other really fun bit is that renaming .Xmodmap to DOTXmodmap, gnome
continued to find it and ask if I wanted to load it. Finally had to hide
it in a subdirectory to make it stop popping up a dialog during early
startup...

** Affects: control-center (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Unconfirmed

-- 
X unusable
https://launchpad.net/bugs/67794