In Ubuntu 11.10, I can set my profile picture through the User Accounts settings panel. I can select an existing picture and it will help me crop that picture to look nice.
The final product is not stored in the same ~/.face file used in Gnome 2. In fact, I don't know where it is stored and I would love to know! Any ideas?
Pictures are stored in the folder /var/lib/AccountsService/icons/[user name]
The [user name] is of type image/png format with a size of 96x96 pixels
Under the folder /var/lib/AccountsService/users you have a similar file [user name] that is a .desktop format - for example
[User]
Language=en_GB
XSession=ubuntu
Icon=/var/lib/AccountsService/icons/dad
The Icon= is not created unless you assign a picture in Users and Accounts
If you assign one of the stock pictures the file will contain - for example
[User]
Language=en_GB
XSession=ubuntu
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/faces/soccerball.png
Thus –as you can see– just create an Icon= entry in /var/lib/AccountsService/user/[user name] to point to your PNG file or overwrite the icon in the similarly named /var/lib/AccountsService/icons folder
