Basically the solution of this requirement is to add the “geometry” paramter to the “gnome-terminal” command line, but here I get a good way to know what’s the “geometry” parameter value you want from here.

First open a gnome-terminal window, resize the window and change the position as you like. When you think the size and position is OK, run the following command in the window:

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xwininfo -id $(xprop -root | awk '/_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW\(WINDOW\)/{print $NF}')

  Absolute upper-left X:  251
  Absolute upper-left Y:  68
  Relative upper-left X:  4
  Relative upper-left Y:  23
  Width: 1201
  Height: 785
  Depth: 24
  Visual: 0x21
  Visual Class: TrueColor
  Border width: 0
  Class: InputOutput
  Colormap: 0x20 (installed)
  Bit Gravity State: NorthWestGravity
  Window Gravity State: NorthWestGravity
  Backing Store State: NotUseful
  Save Under State: no
  Map State: IsViewable
  Override Redirect State: no
  Corners:  +251+68  -148+68  -148-47  +251-47
  -geometry 118x33+247-43

See the final line of the output “-geometry 118x33+247-43”? Then what you need to do is to modify your shortcut of gnome-terminal by using this information:

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gnome-terminal --geometry=118x33+247-43

That’s it.

PS@20130822:

For the locked shortcut on the Unity dock of Ubuntu 12.04, if you want it have customized initial size, you can do it this way:

1. Use “alacarte” to open the “gnome-terminal” shortcut and modify the command as above and save;

2. Uncheck “Lock to Launcher” option of the shortcut on the dock;

3. Start a “gnome-terminal” window and check “Lock to Launcher”;

4. Done.