Comment 2 for bug 132833

This behavior has always existed, AFAIK, but you imply that in Feisty that background color was synchronized with your GDM choice. Is that the case? That color you see between login and Gnome is the root X window, which exists "below" the GDM and typical Gnome Desktop levels. So you will see it "poke through" between the time GDM exits and Gnome finishes loading. To change it by hand, you can edit the file /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default and change the BACKCOLOR variable defined around line 61 of that file. It is default set to "#dab082", which is the camel color you describe. To make it black instead, set it to "#000000". I will continue to look into this and see if it syncs to my GDM choice on a Feisty box.