The problem is typically caused by the video driver, specifically the OpenGL driver, if it doesn't support proper 3D manipulations. Most likely you are using Mesa drivers, which can be verified by running "glxinfo | grep -i mesa".
The solution is usually to upgrade your drivers to the vendor-specific ones from NVIDIA, ATI, etc, as relevant for your graphics card. This is always a good idea since it will enhance the 3D graphics performance significantly as well.
