I'm not sure if this is the place to get help with difficulties, but I don't know where else to go. My problem is that whenever I try to make more "advanced" shapes like cylinders, cones, UV spheres, etc. Blender immediately closes. I'm running a fresh install of Ubuntu Linux 11.10 and have Blender 2.58.0. I can place circles, cubes, and most other low poly shapes without crashing. Does anybody know how to fix this error?
And if it helps, I have been able to place those objects on this same computer, just not 2.58 and ubuntu.

Without a backtrace, I'm just guessing: it is blowing up in the opengl video driver.

Usual fixes:

use manufacturer's driver

play with the Window Draw mode settings in Blender's User Prefs

turn of eye candy window managers - compiz, kde4 desktop effects, transparent compositing stuff

Would me getting a back trace help? If so, how do I do that?

EDIT: I installed Blender 2.48 using WINE and everything works perfectly, but I still want to fix my Linux install (or get a working version previous (or ahead) of 2.52)...

Did you try the other options Stiv mentioned?

Changing the window draw method in Blender..

( File > User Preferences > System TAB > middle column )

Or making sure you arent running any fancy desktop graphics mode in Ubuntu. ( Turning off Compiz in Ubuntu 11.10 )

Also, Blender 2.62 was released today.

I tried all the other window draw methods, each crashing the same. And about the compiz thing, I am using Unity 2D, so I don't think it's being used.

You might also try launching Blender from a terminal, and see if it spits out any information when it crashes.

What the terminal said:
blender
macoy@macoy-madson:~$ blender
Segmentation fault
macoy@macoy-madson:~$

Oh, and I tried 2.62. It runs, then as soon as I try to create those advanced objects it crashes (same as 2.52).

Run Blender under the debugger:

Code:

gdb blender

Then when it segfaults, type

Code:

bt

to print out a backtrace.

Here's what the debugger outputted:

Code:

Starting program: /usr/bin/blender [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] [New Thread 0xb7f90b70 (LWP 19890)] [Thread 0xb7f90b70 (LWP 19890) exited] [New Thread 0xb7f90b70 (LWP 19891)] [New Thread 0xb378eb70 (LWP 19892)] Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. 0x0280e1d2 in ?? () from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i915_dri.so (gdb) bt #0  0x0280e1d2 in ?? () from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i915_dri.so #1  0x0281dbfb in ?? () from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i915_dri.so #2  0x0295ce26 in ?? () from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/libdricore.so #3  0x0295e204 in ?? () from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/libdricore.so #4  0x0295288f in _tnl_run_pipeline ()    from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/libdricore.so #5  0x0282327a in ?? () from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i915_dri.so #6  0x0295317f in _tnl_draw_prims ()    from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/libdricore.so #7  0x02953801 in _tnl_vbo_draw_prims ()    from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/libdricore.so #8  0x02948df8 in vbo_exec_vtx_flush ()    from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/libdricore.so #9  0x029407b6 in ?? () from /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/libdricore.so #10 0x0862aef9 in ?? () #11 0x08352037 in ?? () #12 0x08356097 in draw_object () #13 0x0832ebf1 in view3d_main_area_draw () #14 0x084b2974 in ED_region_do_draw () #15 0x082865c0 in wm_draw_update () #16 0x08284f58 in WM_main () #17 0x0827c9dc in main () (gdb)

I found that Blender 2.48 in WINE crashes as soon as I go to edit mode (but sculpting, painting, etc. modes work fine) and when I try to make an icosphere. This sucks.

Quote:

/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i915_dri.so

That is the Intel video driver spitting up.

Doesn't Unity have some sort of transparent/compositing eye candy?

If you are using Blender 2.58, you might want to try the lastest version, just for fun. No need to install, just unpack the archive and run.

Tried Blender 2.5x using XCFE (or something like that), a pretty ugly and effectless UI, and it still crashes the same .

It must be the drivers Ubuntu came with. Any ideas on how I can get working drivers?