I think that that was serega, not me, that posted that code. ^^;
But still, did you try moving the mouse around, with either the left- or (preferably) middle- mouse-button held?
The code posted by serega places the camera initially at the same height as the grid and looking out along the plane of the grid, thus making it potentially hard to see without first adjusting the view.
Hmm, this is interesting…
Looking at this old thread, perhaps it’s worth looking into fixing the issue and seeing whether that helps?
On a related note, a bit of quick searching prompts me to ask: are you by any chance using an integrated Intel graphics chipset? (i.e. As opposed to a dedicated graphics card/chipset.)
(I’m also on Linux, by the way.)