vncserver grey screen ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Hello so there is lots of discussion about ubuntu 16, and I have tried all of those for 18 but I always get the same grey screen. The relevant part in my perl file is

$defaultXStartup
    = ("#!/bin/shnn".
       "# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:n".
       "# unset SESSION_MANAGERn".
       "# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrcnn".
       "[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartupn".
       "[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresourcesn".
       "xsetroot -solid greyn".
       "vncconfig -iconic &n".
       "x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &n".
       "x-window-manager &n".
       "gnome-panel &n".
       "/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-xsettings &n".
       "metacity &n".
       "nautilus &n");

No matter what I get the same grey screen. Does anyone have a owrking example of this config for ubuntu 18 ? thanks