This isn’t a huge issue or anything, but if anyone knows how to help with it that would be great! 
I just did a fresh install of my os and this time I decided to just download blender 2.66 from blender.org because I wanted the newest version. In order to ensure that I had all the required dependencies, I checked blender (I think it was 2.62 or something) in synaptic package manager, the package manager automatically checked the dependencies for installation as well. Then I unchecked blender and just installed the dependencies, since I would be running the 2.66 executable straight from the folder I downloaded from blender.org.
When all this was done I launched the executable and it ran just fine, so I moved the “blender-2.66-linux-glibc211-i686” to my home folder and added some shortcuts to the executable into my panel and programs menu. I also opened one of my .blend files, and when the system didn’t know what to do, I pointed it to the executable in the blender folder in my home folder and checked the box that said something like “always use this command for files like this.”
Now in the past when I installed blender from the repositories, my .blend files would actually appear with a thumbnail showing the unrendered scene or model from the main camera’s pov. This is not happening now. Is there some way to fix that?
EDIT
Solved! I don’t think I manually changed anything, but it just started showing the little thumbnail previews on its own. As if I just had to start using it some more and “break it in.”