second... after getting frustrated with the above situation, i reboot just to umount the usbkey. i notice that my gnome setup no longer fades when i have the logout screen showing. anyway to fix this as well? it's eye candy, but it makes some people (who haven't seen winxp) go "oooh, what's that".
thanks
hey guys i figured this part out. disable support for assistive technologies (the magnifier, speech, on-screen keyboard thing). fade is back.
dex