[PD] Gem, Nvidia under Linux

[Jon B]

I just got my Nvidia GeForce FX Go5200 (Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop) to
work under Linux (Libranet).  So after convincing myself it is really
working by playing some 3D games, I try to run pd/gem.  I use the
command

pd -rt -lib Gem

and it gives the error:

/usr/lib/pd/extra/Gem.pd_linux: libnvidia-tls.so.1: cannot handle TLS data
Gem: can't load library

So it looks like it found the library fine, but it has an issue with
the nvidia drivers?  Can someone point me in the right direction?

pd/gem works fine under windows XP, as far as I can tell.  the video
playing I think had an error, but otherwise I got shapes and colors
and stuff to work.

Background:  I have never had a computer capable of running gem before
(so maybe it's not working perfectly in XP and I just don't know the
difference) and I am pretty new to Linux.

Unrelated: in windows, I used an installer that handled pd, gem, zexy,
mjLib, cyclone, etc. etc.  Is there a comparable package for Debian
that combines a bunch of things so I don't need to install them all
separately?

Unrelated: what does -font 10 do?  doesn't seem to have any effect
when i change it in xp.