I’m running a pretty stock ubuntu hardy install on craptastic ATI video hardware and associated proprietary binary drivers. For some reason whenever I run an X app over an SSH tunnel, X just crashes. It’s super frustrating to have everything all set up and have it crash, so my work around… Switch the desktop to a virtual desktop with nothing on it and run Xephyr on full screen, throw fluxbox on it, grab a shell and ssh from there. It works, and I figure if it crashes it shouldn’t take down all of X.

apt-get install xserver-xephyr fluxbox
Xephyr :1 -fullscreen -ac -br
fluxbox -display :1 &