CentOS

Yes - I see you posted while I was composing - did not catch that, and will defer to an author of the Wiki page, but I'm a bit confused as IIRC switchdesk is not installed by default and from inspecting /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc and /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients Gnome will normally start if it is installed and ~/.Xclients does not exist.

[quote]
gerald_clark wrote:
Nothing past the "exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc" will run.
The default has not been set.[/quote]

If that's true, why does my VNC work like a charm?
[code]$ cat .vnc/xstartup
#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
# unset SESSION_MANAGER
# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
# xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -nowin &
# xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
teamviewer6 &
gnome-session &[/code]

I don't have the "( while true ; do xterm ; done ) &" line; would that make the difference between showing a desktop and a blank screen?

Because you are not running
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
and therfore not running the normal desktop.

On the server:
go to the X login screen and login as the user in question.
Does it work?
If not, it won't work in VNC either.

[b]Gerald[/b]
I see; thanks.

I had this same problem and solved by making ~/.vnc/xstartup executable, which it was not on initial writing.

I was launching x0vncserver from a remote ssh terminal. The server would run, but then connecting to vncviewer would show the black screen as mentioned above.

The solution:
Launching x0vncserver from a terminal window on the host gnome environment.

I use this configuration with win2vnc, so I get dual monitor Windows + 3rd monitor linux side-by-side with one keyboard and mouse. Works great!