Just compiled it on my trisquel box since none of the debian 0.4.3 debs worked. It flashes the window and crashes. Running from terminal gets "segfault" out of it. I've run it with --verbose and I'm dumping below.
I did get it working from one of the debs on my trisquel netbook, just a straight-up install worked on that one.
james@turing-spaceheater:~/temp/celeron55-minetest-9696ed3/bin$ ./minetest --verbose
10:10:33: INFO[main]: Using relative paths (RUN_IN_PLACE)
10:10:33: INFO[main]: logfile = debug.txt
10:10:33: INFO[main]: path_share = /home/james/temp/celeron55-minetest-9696ed3/bin/..
10:10:33: INFO[main]: path_user = /home/james/temp/celeron55-minetest-9696ed3/bin/..
10:10:33: INFO[main]: minetest with SER_FMT_VER_HIGHEST=25, VER=0.4.3 BUILD_TYPE=Release RUN_IN_PLACE=1 USE_GETTEXT=0 USE_SOUND=1 STATIC_SHAREDIR=.
Irrlicht Engine version 1.7.2
Linux 3.0.0-24-generic #5trisquel1 SMP Sun Aug 12 11:19:46 UTC 2012 i686
Creating X window...
Visual chosen: : 204
failed to create drawable
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
From call : X_CreateGC
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
From call : X_CreateGC
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
From call : X_GetGeometry
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
From call : X_GetGeometry
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
From call : X_GetGeometry
Using renderer: OpenGL 2.1
Software Rasterizer: Mesa Project
OpenGL driver version is 1.2 or better.
GLSL version: 1.2
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
From call : X_GetGeometry
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
From call : X_GetGeometry
10:10:33: INFO[main]: text_height=18
10:10:33: INFO[main]: Searching worlds...
10:10:33: INFO[main]: In /home/james/temp/celeron55-minetest-9696ed3/bin/../worlds:
10:10:33: INFO[main]: 0 found.
10:10:33: INFO[main]: Waiting for other menus
10:10:33: INFO[main]: Waited for other menus
10:10:33: INFO[main]: Created main menu
Segmentation fault