Thanks for the DISPLAY variable hint! It doesn't fully solve my problem though, as whenever I then run unity --reset, it complains that the unity-panel-service is not running (can I start that manually somehow?). However, that does get me a desktop which responds to a right-click, and when I open a terminal via ctrl-alt-t, I can actually see it and it responds normally, except that the unity launcher and panel are missing.
Thanks for the DISPLAY variable hint! It doesn't fully solve my problem though, as whenever I then run unity --reset, it complains that the unity-panel-service is not running (can I start that manually somehow?). However, that does get me a desktop which responds to a right-click, and when I open a terminal via ctrl-alt-t, I can actually see it and it responds normally, except that the unity launcher and panel are missing.