System crashes with some applications

Hi everybody! I'm having this issue with two applications I have installed from sources other than Etch or 64Studio. I wonder whether it is a problem of my running the 32 bit version in a X86_64 CPU or whether it has nothing to do with this.(Currently I don't have the 64 bit version because I use a VST plugin for the guitar). The fact is that I have installed googleearth, following the instructions of the web page suggested by Quentin. I've used Synaptic to install the googleearth-package from the lenny repository and then "make" and "dkpg -i..." and the teminal said "Success", so far so good, but when I type googleearth in the console the system crashes (it appears for a moment the googleearth window though) and I have to login (in the initial user login screen) again. Exactly the same comes about with fusion-compiz, from the "shame" repositories, following the instructions by sonique at http://sonique54.free.fr/compiz-fusion/compiz-fusion.html (etch way). Everything seems to install OK but when I type "fusion-replace" the system crashes in the same way as explained above. For the rest, I am running a lot of applications with no problems, I have the nvidia driver and it works fine with neverball and billardgl (3D games). Of course I'm in 64studio mostly for the audio apps but I feel like watching the Earth like a bird and having a cube in my desktop. Any suggestion is welcomed, Enjoy Linux! Pablo