This is normally due to Nautilus crashing. (Just like Windows, Gnome provides the "desktop" via the file manager).
Next time it happens, try opening a command prompt and entering "nautilus &". If it restores the desktop stuff, you know the cause. Don't run like that for too long, however, as some of the Gnome system seems to assume that the Nautilus process is parented properly, and will cause weird behavior if it's started from a command line.
Trent Shipley wrote:
> Occasionally, when I am using out-of-the-box Ubuntu, I wind up on an
> empty screen with only the wall paper showing--no system stuff, no icons
> on the desktop, nothing but wallpaper. I suspect what I am doing is
> getting to a new virtual desktop, but maybe not because in KDE and OS X
> a new virtual desktop keeps desktop furniture like toolbars, start
> symbols, and icons on the desktop.
>
>
> The big problem is that I can't figure out how to do anything useful
> with the empty screen, so I have to shutdown (with the power button) and
> restart. (I guess I could look up how to change shells with a key
> chord, go to a command line shell and 'sudo shutdown -r now' or startx
> with a new shell number.) But what I really want to do is to go back to
> where I was (and figure out how to use virtual desktops in GNOME).
>
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