On some Linux machines with Intel 945 graphics cards, problematic graphics drivers crash Mathematica. The crashes commonly happen when rotating 3D graphics. Starting Mathematica with Mesa, an open-source 3D graphics library, prevents the crash.

1. To see what graphics card is on the computer, evaluate in Mathematica:

   SystemInformation[]

   A dialog appears with your computer’s system information. Navigate to: Devices ► Graphics Subsystem: OpenGL

2. To prevent the crash, start Mathematica in a special mode that uses Mesa graphics. Start Mathematica in the terminal with the mesa flag:

   mathematica -mesa

   This prevents crashes caused by some open source drivers.

3. Alternatively, try reverting to an older version of the graphics driver or update once a new driver becomes available.