I think the important point here is that you provide "something" to fall back to, even an error question dialog would be a better experience.
What about if mutter can't launch, or returns a non-zero return code (which I think is the trigger for this behavior), launch a little dialog similar to:
-- Error Starting Ubuntu Netbook Edition --
It appears that your system doesn't have the proper resources to run Ubuntu Netbook. What would you like to do?
< > Retry Launching Ubuntu Netbook Edition
< > Log into Ubuntu Desktop Edition instead
[ ] Save my choice for next time I log in
{ Launch }
--
It at least gets the customer out of the rough spot, and a simple dialog like that won't need a window manager running to render. Testing the return code of the startup process shouldn't be a very costly procedure.
I think the important point here is that you provide "something" to fall back to, even an error question dialog would be a better experience.
What about if mutter can't launch, or returns a non-zero return code (which I think is the trigger for this behavior), launch a little dialog similar to:
-- Error Starting Ubuntu Netbook Edition --
It appears that your system doesn't have the proper resources to run Ubuntu Netbook. What would you like to do?
< > Retry Launching Ubuntu Netbook Edition
< > Log into Ubuntu Desktop Edition instead
[ ] Save my choice for next time I log in
{ Launch }
--
It at least gets the customer out of the rough spot, and a simple dialog like that won't need a window manager running to render. Testing the return code of the startup process shouldn't be a very costly procedure.