i dont know anything about hippo. i have no idea what it is or what it does. that stated, i will shoot you some ideas.
QUOTE
I know that I have VNC installed correctly because I can access the XDSL desktop from other machines on my network.
so far you are supporting hippo's claim that hippo is not compatible..
QUOTE
The Hippo setup asks for the IP (or host), a password, a port, and a HW address (which it lists as optional).
you might need to set a port thru your router (port forwarding).
oh wait, you tried that? unless you did something wrong, there's strike two.
the default user/pass for a standard issue install of DSL is xbox and xbox, if i am not mistaken. i never need to present a login, but if its not xbox/xbox, it may be root/root, xbox/root or root/xbox. just a shot in the dark.
otherwise, thats three strikes against hippo.
it should be noted that it could be a kernel incompatibility or really any number of problems. you would probably be better off asking the hippo user community if they have used hippon on the 2.4 based linux kernel. 2.4.x is the last stable/working kernel for a loopback install of DSL on the xbox. this kernel is *old* now and possibly may not have a function that modern linux kernels offer. i have a certain mp3 player thats brand new, it won't mount on ubuntu karmic koala, but it will mount on the 9.0c ubuntu release (the last most recent). its a kernel relative problem.
it gets better, if i plug it into my DSL via usb adapter, it detects it, but fails to identify its FS format.
if anything, you could always reinstall your DSL and define your own username/password, but i would chalk it up to this unit being icompatible with DSL.