I've been following
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=122402&highlight=vnc
 to the letter, and have gotten things to the point where both
'vncserver localhost:1' (on my pc) and 'vncserver myip:1' (from
anywhere else) work.

Meaning they authenticate and bring up an X session. What I see is a
grayish background with the X server's 'x' cursor, but no login
screen, nothing of use anywhere to be seen.

I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do, as most complaints regarding
vnc are getting it up and running or authenticating it, and no one is
responding on irc, so I figured I would test my luck here.

Does this sound familiar to any of you who have used vnc? What does it
mean? How can I change it to get a login?

                                        -jordan