this is fixed in edgy. There was an xfdesktop crash if there was a symlink in ~/Desktop I suppose that's what you had as well.
** Changed in: xfdesktop4 (Ubuntu) Status: Unconfirmed => Fix Released -- xfdesktop crashes on first startup after install, if ~/Desktop folder is not empty. https://launchpad.net/bugs/57006 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs