How To Install Google Earth On Ubuntu 10.10

Version 1.0

Author: Falko Timme

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In previous Ubuntu versions, there was a Google Earth .deb package available in the Medibuntu repository; unfortunately there is no such package for Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat). While it is possible to install the Google Earth package for Ubuntu 10.04 on Ubuntu 10.10 (as described in chapter 13 of The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)), there is another way of installing Google Earth on Ubuntu 10.10. The method described in this tutorial will create a Google Earth .deb package for Ubuntu 10.10 from which Google Earth can be installed.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Building The Google Earth .deb Package

Open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal)...

... and install the package googleearth-package (this is a utility to automatically build a Debian package of Google Earth):

sudo apt-get install googleearth-package

If you are on an x86_64 system, you must also install ia32-libs:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Now you can build the Google Earth .deb package as follows:

sudo make-googleearth-package --force

[email protected]:~$ sudo make-googleearth-package --force

[...]

Package: googleearth

Version: 5.2.1.1588+0.5.7-1

Section: non-free/science

Priority: optional

Maintainer: <[email protected]>

Architecture: amd64

Depends: ttf-dejavu | ttf-bitstream-vera | msttcorefonts, ia32-libs (>= 20080808), lib32gcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1),

lib32stdc++6 (>= 4.1.1), lib32stdc++6 (>= 4.2.1), lib32z1 (>= 1:1.1.4), lib32z1 (>= 1:1.2.0),

libc6-i386 (>= 2.0), libc6-i386 (>= 2.1.3), libc6-i386 (>= 2.3), libc6-i386 (>= 2.3.2),

libc6-i386 (>= 2.4), nvidia-current , lib32nss-mdns

Description: Google Earth, a 3D map/planet viewer

Package built with googleearth-package.

dpkg-deb: building package `googleearth' in `./googleearth_5.2.1.1588+0.5.7-1_amd64.deb'.

Success!

You can now install the package with e.g. sudo dpkg -i <package>.deb

[email protected]:~$

If you don't see any errors, then you should find the googleearth package in the current directory:

ls -l

[email protected]:~$ ls -l

total 62876

drwxr-xr-x 2 falko falko 4096 2010-10-22 13:47 Desktop

drwxr-xr-x 2 falko falko 4096 2010-10-22 13:47 Documents

drwxr-xr-x 2 falko falko 4096 2010-10-22 13:47 Downloads

-rw-r--r-- 1 falko falko 179 2010-10-22 13:39 examples.desktop

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 32932632 2010-11-10 15:35 googleearth_5.2.1.1588+0.5.7-1_amd64.deb

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31406473 2010-09-02 18:30 GoogleEarthLinux.bin

drwxr-xr-x 2 falko falko 4096 2010-10-22 13:47 Music

drwxr-xr-x 2 falko falko 4096 2010-11-10 15:26 Pictures

drwxr-xr-x 2 falko falko 4096 2010-10-22 13:47 Public

-rw-r--r-- 1 falko falko 910 2010-11-10 15:36 setup.txt

drwxr-xr-x 2 falko falko 4096 2010-10-22 13:47 Templates

drwxr-xr-x 2 falko falko 4096 2010-10-22 13:47 Videos

[email protected]:~$

As you see, my package is named googleearth_5.2.1.1588+0.5.7-1_amd64.deb.

2 Installing Google Earth

Instead of using dpkg, I want to use gdebi to install the package because gdebi also takes care of missing dependencies (dpkg doesn't). Therefore I have to install gdebi before I install googleearth:

sudo apt-get install gdebi-core

Now I can install googleearth as follows:

sudo gdebi googleearth_5.2.1.1588+0.5.7-1_amd64.deb

That's it!

Afterwards, you can find Google Earth under Applications > Internet > Google Earth:

Here are a few screenshots of Google Earth in action: Advertisement