Sunday, January 23, 2011

Google Earth on Ubuntu 10.10

Have you ever wanted to install the latest greatest Google Earth on Ubuntu, only to find that the repository contains an old version.  Here is the solution laid out in simple to follow terminal commands.



Install sudo apt-get install googleearth-package


Then run make-googleearth-package --force

Now you should find a .deb package in your home folder ready to install.  If the install fails and your on a 64 bit machine, try this. In the terminal run sudo aptitude install lib32nss-mdns lsb then try reinstalling the .deb package.  You can also download the .deb file for version 6 beta from here http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html


At this point you should have a functioning install of Google Earth running in Ubuntu.  If you have an ATI Video card, you probably have more problems...  You might notice that the area that is typically black with stars goes transparent on you.


Try this trick. Modify your Icon launcher to read like this: 

XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 googleearth -style GTK+ %f


The result should look like this!



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