well, your problem has been introduced by the [glsl_*]-objects, whichare
using openGL-2.0 features.
your options are: install an openGL that supports openGL-2.0 specs. (if
you have an nvidia-card, install the nvidia-glx(-devel) packages; else i
don't know (so you are probably out of luck))
OR
remove following files from the Gem-sources:
src/Manips/glsl_*.{cpp,h,o}
src/openGL/GEMglUniform*.{cpp,h,o}
and recompile

I did what you suggested and recompiled Gem successfully, -lib Gem loads and seems to work fine. Just one last question-- by having removed the above files, what functions in Gem am I sacrificing?
Thanks again,
/Brad.