Configuring graphical desktop on Linode VPS

Question

I'm experimenting with using a Linode VPS as a development box for my Rails projects, so I'd like to set up a GUI environment to run a few basics, like Google Chrome for debugging.

There is a pretty good tutorial on installing VPC and Gnome here, and I've followed it closely. Everything seems to run correctly, but when I try to log in from the VNC client, I'm getting a message:

Failed to load session 'ubuntu.' 

This is on a default gray screen accompanied by a logout button and black X.

I'm thinking the issue is with my .vnc/startup file, but I'm not sure where to start troubleshooting. I tried logging in from different clients on Windows and my local Ubuntu box. I also tried rebuilding the VPS from the start and got the same result.

Any suggestions?

EDIT: I checked the session log file, and here are the errors reported. I'm thinking the font errors aren't a big deal, but the security policy error seems like a problem.

Xvnc Free Edition 4.1.1 - built Sep  7 2011 11:26:15
Copyright (C) 2002-2005 RealVNC Ltd.
See http://www.realvnc.com for information on VNC.
Underlying X server release 40300000, The XFree86 Project, Inc


Sat Nov 12 04:54:40 2011
 vncext:      VNC extension running!
 vncext:      Listening for VNC connections on port 5901
 vncext:      created VNC server for screen 0
error opening security policy file /etc/X11/xserver/SecurityPolicy
Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/, removing from list!
Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/, removing from list!

Solution 1

Add some parameters to launch gnome-session in your ~/.vnc/xstartup file

gnome-session --session=gnome-classic &

or

exec gnome-session --session=gnome-classic &

Solution 2

You could also just use X forwarding over ssh to launch chrome from that system.

ssh -X and then just launch chromium-browser

Comments

[Ashutosh Jindal]

Adding 'gnome-session ...' as the last line in my xstartup worked !! I also had to do a vncserver -kill :1 followed by vncserver :1 -depth 16 -geometry 1028×1024. Following that I was able to connect through 'Chicken of the VNC'

[mirza]

where to write ssh -X and how to launch chromium-browser ?