Gnome 2.2 & Xfree 4.3 cursor issues

[Tafoya]

***Current Setup***
I have installed both Gnome 2.2 and Xfree 4.3 installed. I have changed my cursor to the redglass by changing the index.theme in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/icons/default
It worked, this is what I want for GDM and root. But for the user Tafoya, I would like to have Whiteglass at size 16.
To do that, I added the following to the /home/Tafoya/.Xdefaults file.
xcursor.size: 16
xcursor.theme: whiteglass
With the changes made it's time to restart.

***Problem***
1- GDM - Mouse is redglass (good)
2- Tafoya logs in, Mouse cursor changes to whiteglass and smaller (good)
3- Gnome splash screen shows what's loading, Gets to Nautilus and Mouse cursor is now redglass and larger (bad)

***Have Tried***
1- In the mouse preferences in gnome, it does not offer the new cursors only the black, white and default choices. And changing those has no effect (it's currently on default as where it was when this problem started)
2- Gconf - found my way to Gnome > schemas > gnome > peripherals > mouse changed the settings there. No Change
3- /home/Tafoya/.gnome2/share/cursor-fonts/fonts.dir only has a 0. I renamed it, changed the 0 to point to directory and deleted it to see if this was causing the problem. No Change.

***Questions***
1- What do I need to do to get the cursors to what they should be?
2- Has anyone made a blue translucent cursor? blueglass?? (I would like that better than red or white)

gt

[fruers]

I had a similar issue when using .Xdefaults, the theme and size would change up until the splash screen when it would switch back. I used the environment variables instead, in my .profile:

[Tafoya]

thanks fruers!

works great!

gt