Comment 8 for bug 429015

Comment #2 and 3 show that this bug is fixed from installing from https://launchpad.net/~ajmitch/+archive/ppa .

That ppa is devoted to the fix for bug #457688 (it contains a single cherrypicked patch in libboost. That patch fixes python-visual segfaults exactly like the one reported here)
Comment #4 here confirmed the fix.

http://vpython.org/contents/download_linux.html discusses the doc string bug, which has the identical symptoms as you describe.
"There is a bug in the standard Boost libraries on Ubuntu 9.10, and to build VPython
you must first install Boost 1.38 libraries from https://launchpad.net/~ajmitch/+archive/ppa.
Be sure to read and follow ALL of the instructions; click on everything in sight on that web page."

I reproduced this bug in Lucid, and fixed this bug using the fix described here (which is actually fixing the bug that I believe to be a duplicate of this bug). The fix described here is the fix for bug #457688 (which is a cherry pick from libboost's svn). Therefore, fixing bug #457688 (and bug #539049) fixes the bug described here.

Either there are two bugs here (one that me, Florian Diesch, linuxcub, Jaime Villate, and vpython developers have noticed and a second one that you have), or they are the same bug.

You're testing is quite thorough and complete, so I'll defer to your judgement a to whether you're reporting the same bug that Florian Diesch, linuxcub, and Jaime Villate are seeing. Have you tried the fix described here (install https://launchpad.net/~ajmitch/+archive/ppa)?
Thanks again for your help.