i should be working (but i'm fixing my computer).

So at the moment I am using the gnome (3.0 sort of) desktop as it is the only one that will remember my left/right screen setup when I logout and log back in.  But I did discover what might be part of the problem(s) ...

...

It seems that in all of my updating by just adding the new repositories, I have ended up a few hundred packages short of the full system.  I noticed that I did not have any right-click editing possibilities on Gnome panels, which led me to wonder if I was missing some packages.  This would not be surprising, as I have never really used gnome, although in the "early days" I would install the full gnome and kde patterns.  But, checking the "patterns" in YAST I discovered I was short a bunch of packages in all of my desktops -- KDE 4.7, Gnome 3.0 and LXDE.  Soooo...a bit of updating going on at the moment.

And as far as the "remote desktop access" thing, it occurs to me that I cannot access my remote desktop due to, probably, having actually disabled this feature when I was setting up the local desktop, as I did not plan on accessing it remotely.  As far as I know, I can't do anything about that until I visit my remote location.

Later: Well, the additional packages did not solve the lack of any right-click menus for gnome-panel, so I don't know what is the issue here.  And, unlike kde, I do not know which configuration directories to kill in order to get a clean desktop install.

Changing from openGL to xrender for effects solved the upside-down and backwards problem, but I had to go back to "over/under" monitors instead of side by side.  Maybe it is a display memory problem.

Accessing display 0 remotely turns out to require a different vnc server.  In other words, tightvnc won't do it, x11vnc is necessary.