gdm failing to start in clean gutsy install

On a Dell Latitude D800, I installed Gutsy from scratch (I had Feisty) in my system partition, leaving my /home partition in place. The only thing perhaps weird is I didn't install when connected to the Internet - I didn't think that was necessary and didn't get any messages other than that security repos are not setup yet. I did try a second install just to see if something got messed up the first time but the second had the same result as the first. I'm going to install now for the 3rd time but this time connected to the Internet to see if that makes any difference.

After a seemingly normal setup process, I reboot from the LiveCD to the new install and after the Ubuntu splash screen I end up on a command line login. I don't get any explicit failed to start X or GDM messages like I've seen in years passed when I messed around with drivers and screens and the like. This is a completely clean install using the stock xorg.conf file - no funny business.

All I see is this:
Starting up ...
Loading, please wait...
kinit: name_to_dev_t(/dev/disk/by-uuid/...) = sda4(8,4)
kinit: trying to resume from /dev/disk/by-uuid/...
kinit: No resume image, doing normal boot...

If I hold down Ctrl+Alt+F1 during the splash screen then I get more startup messages. The interesting one is simply:
Starting Gnome Desktop Manager .... [fail]

After which I end up on the terminal login also. If I try a manual start: sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart I get the same failure indication but no 3 attempts and blinking screen and all that which I used to see if gdm was failing to start. It's like it doesn't even try to start.

Interestingly - and most annoyingly - there are no logs at all in /var/log/gdm. Nada. If I do a find /var/log -mmin -15 after trying all this and look through the files that have changed I don't see anything that looks gdm related.

Any ideas where look next?