Screenshots
Recommended installation methods
Installing the .deb file downloaded from the Google Earth Website
The Google Earth Website now has pre-compiled .deb packages for Ubuntu.
Open http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html and download the .deb package of Google Earth (ver. 6) for your CPU (32 or 64-bit). Make sure you select the English (US) language at the top of the page – otherwise, you will get the GoogleEarthLinux.bin package, which cannot be installed using this method. (In spite of selecting the English language, the Google Earth will most probably run in your current locale.)
Make sure the lsb-core package is installed! Open a terminal from Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal and type (or copy-paste) the following command into the terminal:
sudo apt-get install lsb-core
Double-click the downloaded .deb package to install it using the Ubuntu Software Center.
After installation you should see Google Earth in the Applications -> Internet menu.
For earlier versions of Ubuntu that don't have the USC, it is preferred that you use gdebi installer:
Make sure that gdebi is installed:
sudo apt-get install gdebi
Install Google Earth .deb package from the terminal
sudo gdebi path_to_the_google_earth_package.deb
or by opening the package with the gdebi's graphical interface.
Installing from Medibuntu repository
Google Earth is available packaged in the Medibuntu repository, however it might not have the latest version available.
Currently only available for hardy, karmic and lucid
Make sure you have the Medibuntu repository added to your package sources, then install the googleearth package by clickinghere or using your favorite package manager (Synaptic in Gnome or Adept in KDE, for example) or type the following in a terminal:
sudo apt-get install googleearth
Alternative installation method
Using make-googleearth-package
Google Earth is also available from googleearth-package. This package installs a script called make-googleearth-package, which downloads the latest stable Google Earth installer from Google and creates a package for you. You can then install and remove the created package at will. You can find the googleearth-package in the multiverse repository.
Make sure the lsb-core package is installed:
sudo apt-get install lsb-core
Install the googleearth-package package:
sudo apt-get install googleearth-package
The instructions on how to use the script can be found by running
make-googleearth-package --help
or
man make-googleearth-package
Use the script to download the latest binary and create a .deb package:
make-googleearth-package --force
Please note that the Natty (11.04) version of googleearth-package no longer seems to require the "--force" option for 64-bit systems. The Natty version can be used on earlier Ubuntu releases.Be aware that a previously downloaded copy of the binary will not be overwritten, so manually delete anyGoogleEarthLinux.bin file before running this command.
- Install the created .deb package and the Google Earth should be available in your menus.
Hints and Tips
Uninstallation
You can uninstall Google Earth as any other package. From the terminal you can do it using the following commands:
Find the exact package name:
dpkg --list 'google-earth*' | cat
which may show that the package name is google-earth-stable.Uninstall the package:
sudo dpkg -P google-earth-stable
If you installed Google Earth by a method that included running sh GoogleEarthLinux.bin (now depreciated), the unistallation can be done by pasting the following command in a terminal:
- This command is all on one line. Copy it and paste it in your terminal.
sudo rm -rf /opt/google-earth && sudo rm /usr/share/mime/application/vnd.google-earth.* /usr/share/mimelnk/application/vnd.google-earth.* /usr/share/applnk/Google-googleearth.desktop /usr/share/mime/packages/googleearth-mimetypes.xml /usr/share/gnome/apps/Google-googleearth.desktop /usr/share/applications/Google-googleearth.desktop /usr/local/bin/googleearth
You may also wish to remove your user preferences folder, although this is not necessary if you intend to reinstall later. This directory contains Google Earth settings and the cache:
rm -rf ~/.googleearth
Troubleshooting
Google Earth for Linux is still in beta. As such, many problems that you may encounter can be attributed to this.
Low performance with Google Earth 4.3
Users have been reporting major performance regressions after upgrading from 4.2. This is due to new atmospheric rendering effects in GE 4.3. Disable these effects if you experience this behavior. Menu>View>Atmosphere. Google Earth Help group query
Google Earth and Compiz
As with all OpenGL apps, Google Earth has issues running with Compiz. To resolve this issue, either run Google Earth in a normal GNOME session, or see this thread: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=176636
Google Earth and ATI
Some people using the ATI fglrx driver have experienced a problem where Google Earth freezes at the splash screen and never starts up. See this post for a solution: http://n01getsout.com/blog/2006/11/21/google-earth-for-linux-freezing-with-ati
Google Earth and 3D acceleration
Ensure that you video driver has 3D acceleration enabled. Display Hardware Drivers by selecting System -> Administration ->Hardware Drivers Select the Enable checkbox next to your graphics card. This may require a system restart.
Google Earth on Ubuntu x64
If you get a "error 29", you may miss "lib32nss-mdns". Install this library like this:
sudo aptitude install lib32nss-mdns
You may also install other 32bit libraries. Note that google does not provide a 64 bit version of Google Earth. Thus installation on x64 system will take some extra efforts.
GoogleEarth 5.0.11337.1968 (beta) on Ubuntu x32
If there is a serious performance issue due to graphics overloading, do the following:
1 - System -> Preferences -> Appearance: Visual Effects tab: set to None
2 - Start GE, try to get to View: remove Atmosphere, Water Surface
3 - By now some overload reduction should allow to change other options, like
Tools -> Options: 3D View tab: check Graphics_Mode checkbox to Use Safe mode
Now you should be able to enjoy Google Earth and the Flight simulator.
GoogleEarth 5.0.11337.1968 (beta) on Ubuntu x64
/usr/lib32/i686/cmov/libcrypto.so.0.9.8 issue
mv ~/google-earth/libcrypto.so.0.9.8 ~/google-earth/libcrypto.so.0.9.8.bak
ln -s /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.8 ~/google-earth/libcrypto.so.0.9.8
Accidentally left the 'start automatically after install' checked
If the installer was started with sudo, googleearth will be started as root, but still using the home folder of the normal user (who started sudo). Thus Google Earth will place its configuration files into the user's home folders, but with root as the owner. The normal user cannot use Google Earth, because the settings cannot be saved. The display will not contain a globe, but only a black space and some settings will be grayed out. To fix this problem, delete the Google Earth configuration directory:
sudo rm -Rf .config/Google .googleearth
Google Earth 5.2.1.1588 on Ubuntu 10.04 x32
This was done using the "alternate install" method above. You may have to adapt it for the package install.
Qt
This version has Qt libraries that appear to be old and incompatible, causing crashes. The stack trace will include: libQtWebKit.so.4(+0x747d18)
To fix this, install the repository's libQt libs:
sudo apt-get install libqtcore4 libqtgui4 libqt4-network libqt4-webkit
Then remove the bundled libs (assuming the default installation location):
cd /opt/google-earth
sudo rm libQtCore.so.4 libQtGui.so.4 libQtNetwork.so.4 libQtWebKit.so.4
Libfreeimage
There is also apparently a buggy version of libfreeimage. The stack trace will include: libIGGfx.so(+0x1296c9)
To fix this:
sudo apt-get install libfreeimage3
then to start Google Earth:
cd /opt/google-earth
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libfreeimage.so.3 googleearth
After these, Google Earth worked very well on my system (ATI Radeon accelerated, Compiz off).
Google Earth 6
Google Earth 6 not starting - /usr/lib/googleearth/googleearth-bin: not found
If you get this message, installing package "lsb-core" should help. It certainly did on my system (Ubuntu 10.10 with GoogleEarth 6.0.0.1735 (beta)), but there are several posting on the net that indicate that it may help with other combination of versions as well.
The Natty (11.04) version of googleearth-package now automatically installs the "lsb-core" package to fix this issue, it can be downloaded and installed on other Ubuntu releases from: http://packages.ubuntu.com/natty/googleearth-package
