Well, I'm back after my 6 months at Neowin (but you just don't get the same Linux attention over there as you do here), and I managed to screw up my computer again.

I installed Samba on my Ubuntu server last night, but it screwed up, so I did a complete removal of it from within APT and reinstalled it, so all of my config files would return to their originals.

However, when I restarted my computer, GNOME wouldn't start. It gave me the whole 10 second warning, and I viewed the file.

At the bottom of the xsession-errors was:
What is wrong here?

Ubuntu 5.10
Installed samba and SWAT via APT, although SWAT didn't work before the restart
Gnome/GDM

BONUS QUESTION!!!

Now children, if you get this right, I'll give you 110% on your math test

How would I set up Samba for access from Windows XP Home Edition??? (to my home directory)

From your discription I would guess that something has hosed your home directory - go to a console and login as root. cd to /home/simon and do a ls -al .I*
If the file is there try deleting it and restarting X by typing init 3, wait for it to take you to runlevel 3 then type init 5 to take you back to an X session.

If this works all is sweet and light, if not then it may be that X cannot read /home/simon, check the perms on that folder.

Let me know if you need more guidance

Phil