I'm a little new to Debian and am using 6.0 on i386.

I installed tightvncserver. I've tried a number of different configurations in the xstartup file including the default and when I connect from a vncviewer client, the screen is gray and kind of pixelated with the cursor which moves with the mouse. I've even tried starting the server session using the settings I want it to start with, like:

tightvncserver :1 -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 -pixelformat rgb565

but it still starts with the same blank display.

What do I need to change ? Thanks.

tightvncserver was being started as root which had no desktop to display....

I just needed to start the server as the user and now i have the desktop. Should have thought about it a little more before posting.

Instead of running vnc on a single runlevel try installing vino. It will configure vnc on all runlevels and will set itself up so you can just vnc to the ip address without specifying the runlevel