Learn. Develop. Share.

To fix the size of tabs, create a file named .gtkrc-2.0 in your home folder, and paste in the following code;

style "gtkcompact" {
	GtkButton::default_border={0,0,0,0}
	GtkButton::default_outside_border={0,0,0,0}
	GtkButtonBox::child_min_width=0
	GtkButtonBox::child_min_heigth=0
	GtkButtonBox::child_internal_pad_x=0
	GtkButtonBox::child_internal_pad_y=0
	GtkMenu::vertical-padding=1
	GtkMenuBar::internal_padding=0
	GtkMenuItem::horizontal_padding=4
	GtkToolbar::internal-padding=0
	GtkToolbar::space-size=0
	GtkOptionMenu::indicator_size=0
	GtkOptionMenu::indicator_spacing=0
	GtkPaned::handle_size=4
	GtkRange::trough_border=0
	GtkRange::stepper_spacing=0
	GtkScale::value_spacing=0
	GtkScrolledWindow::scrollbar_spacing=0
	GtkTreeView::vertical-separator=0
	GtkTreeView::horizontal-separator=0
	GtkTreeView::fixed-height-mode=TRUE
	GtkWidget::focus_padding=0
}
class "GtkWidget" style "gtkcompact"
style "compact-toolbar"
{
	GtkToolbar::internal-padding = 0
	xthickness = 1
	ythickness = 1
}
style "compact-button"
{
	xthickness = 0
	ythickness = 0
}
class "GtkToolbar" style "compact-toolbar"
widget_class "**" style "compact-button"

To enable menu icons, run the following command in a terminal window:

gconftool-2 --type boolean --set /desktop/gnome/interface/menus_have_icons true

In Ubuntu 12:

To enable menu icons, run the following command in a terminal window:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface menus-have-icons true
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface buttons-have-icons true