On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 00:37, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote:
> I didn't *really* solve this but I did find a way to avoid the "greeter"
> screen that was totally bugging out.  The /etc/gdm/custom.conf file was
> essentially empty so I added two "AutoMaticLogin" lines immediately after
> "[daemon]":
> 8< SNIP >8
> Where "user" was my username.  This makes it so that I am logged in
> automatically at boot up and the greeter is skipped.  So it doesn't really
> fix the problem but it avoids it well enough for me (if someone breaks
> into my office and knows what he's doing, I'm screwed no matter what!).

Fundamentally, this is an X windows issue. I think the particular
driver that's setup is not functioning properly or is not the right
one.

Given your stated use of the machine at work, housing an internal VNC
session that can be connected to remotely. Not unsurprisingly, most of
the documentation out there centers on connecting to or sharing your
existing desktop:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VNC

which is not what you want. I've done what you want (and, if I
understand what you wrote originally, you do too), but for the sake of
the other readers, if they haven't done it before, it's trivial to
setup one (or more) VNC servers running whatever WM you choose. Here's
a fairly decent (and recent) write-up on it:

http://www.abdevelopment.ca/blog/start-vnc-server-ubuntu-boot

I used to run a non-desktop fvwm session on my desktop Linux box 6
years ago and connect to it like I use ssh and screen for CLI work. I
was even on sabbatical with my partner over in New Zealand and was
able to continue working via these VNC sessions (I did several
fullblown installs of IBM's Content Manager -- comprised of DB2, MQS,
Apache, and other parts that all had java-based GUI installers -- on
AIX boxen that were in the "local," meaning back in the States,
machine room). It worked great.

-- 
Brian D. Ropers-Huilman
612.234.7778
Sent from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States