I'm attempting to log into my Amazon EC2 instance running Ubuntu 14.04 server edition. I'm running FreeNX. I installed FreeNX more-or-less following the instructions in the Ubuntu FreeNX documentation. I modified my /etc/nxserver/node.conf file by setting
ENABLE_PASSDB_AUTHENTICATION="1"
and adding the line
COMMAND_START_GNOME='gnome-session --session=ubuntu-2d'
which I got from this gist that I randomly found online.
I ran the following commands to enable passdb authentication for my primary user (ubuntu)
sudo nxserver --adduser ubuntu
sudo nxserver --passwd ubuntu
I installed Ubuntu desktop
apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
and a slew of other desktops based on this Ask Ubuntu post:
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
sudo apt-get install xfce4
sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback
My current problem is that, although the login seems to be working, I'm getting a black screen in my NX client; I've tried both the NoMachine and OpenNX clients on my mac. If I mess with my client configuration, I can access a terminal over NX, but I can't start any desktops.
When I attempt to start using the default "gnome" configuration, I get a black screen. I can't figure out how to start any other shell. I'm most interested in getting some form of gnome working, but I'll take what I can get.
The primary question: why am I getting a black screen when attempting to connect to a gnome shell and what can I do about it?
