VNCSERVER grey screen

[allen blowers <blowers@computer.org>]

Hi, decided to write this since it took me too long to figure this out
on my own, and could hope to save the next guy a minute or two.  

VNCServer broke when I upgraded from stable to testing.  The symptom was
that all I got when connecting to the vncserver was a grey screen, like
what the VNC FAQ at www.realvnc.org calls a "grey 'rootweave' desktop". 
I could see that I did not have a ~/.vnc/xstartup file.  So I copied a
sample from a suggestion I found on a list.  I could see that it did not
get executed.  But the VNC documentation is pretty clear that it should
get executed by VNCSERVER, and there is plenty of chatter on these lists
about it.  But again just putting it there was not enough, it did not
get executed.  I could see in the log file in the `/.vnc directory that
my vncclient was connecting ok but all I got on that client was the grey
rootweave desktop.

I read through the vncserver script and found that there was a veriable
($vncStartup) that should be pointing at the ~/.vnc/xstartup file. 
Fine, but how to set the veriable.  A little more sleuthing found the
/etc/vnc.conf file where that veriable can be set.  But following the
hint in the comments to that file I created a ~/.vncrc file with the
following line:
$vncStartup = "$ENV{HOME}/.vnc/xstartup";

Now my ~/.vnc/xstartup file is a short shell script that starts my
window manager.  

Best Regards, Allen