Hi Torkamata,
My apologies, I misread some of your question, so I'll try to answer it again:
upon login between entering my password and getting to the desktop the screen turns grey for a couple of seconds then renders the desktop and wallpaper is this expected behavior?
The screen turning grey for a moment is unusual but not worrysome.
The fact that it takes several seconds is rather a bit on the slow side.
This is mostly dependent on the speed of the (3D) initialisation of the GPU.
The slowness is caused by either a bug/misconfig in the driver or partly failing hardware .
'no compositor' or 'built-in' should always work.
So if it (compositing) works for you despite the few seconds greyscreen: so much the better
but this behaviour is , nevertheless, a serious issue which should be addressed.
Check if you have the newest kernel. If not: update.
Follow this thread an see if it helps in your case:
Also this terrific post of @ricmarques may be of some help:
If the problem persists:
Best you can do is file a bug on the ubuntu bugtracker:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux
After a bug is filed and a fix is committed you only have to wait for a kernel update which then hopefully fixes this issue.
Further: You can explore internet for any open bug on this driver
google for:
Linux i915 bug TigerLake-LP GT2 Iris Xe Graphics
This is all I can offer at the moment.
I hope someone else on this forum chimes in with a bit more info.