I have installed vnc on my droplet and I can connect via tightVNC. However, I cannot see the prompt in my terminal. If I type "ls" or any other command I know something is running because I see the scrollbar change. And occasionally I see some text come on the screen. But it's almost if I'm looking at a small subsection in the center of the terminal.

Also, my desktop is completely blank. Any icons might be on the outside and not visible.

I'm running Ubuntu 14.04. I installed

apt-get install gnome-core xfce4 firefox
apt-get install vnc4server

as root.