On Thu, Jun 02, 2016 at 07:56:37AM -0400, Jerry Geis wrote:
Then when I use something like vncviewer from a windows laptop into the linux desktop I get the password prompt, but the next screen says "oh no, something went wrong".
That sounds like the desktop environment (Gnome3) is failing, probably because its a compositing desktop environment and fails because it can't use GL.
You could try it with a desktop manager other than Gnome3.