What is the real reason that Google Earth won't install in Ubuntu 13.10 anyway?

[Jim_Granite]

Why would Canonical kill Google Earth on purpose? It makes no sense.

I had a devil of a time installing Google Earth when I first installed it into Ubuntu 13.10 (64 bit); and now, a few months later, it just crashes upon execution (and I can't re-install it properly).
Googling, I find this is a well known long-standing problem, e.g., this thread shows the same symptoms that I have:
- Google Earth won't start - 13.10 edition

Worse, I find a systemic problem listed in this Softpedia article:
- Say Goodbye to Google Earth on Ubuntu 13.10

That article says the problem is Canonical purposefully deprecated a certain library (ia32-libs) which Google Earth needs in order to run.
But, why would Canonical essentially disable Google Earth, on purpose?

It wouldn't right? So there must be a reason that the ia32-libs are deprecated. Right?
So, I'm confused. What's going on, in plain words anyway?
Is this a lesser-of-two-evils problems, or a competitive attack, or just a mistake, or what?

[Bucky Ball]

Thread moved to Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat.

Not a support request.

[SuperFreak]

I cannot help you with your installation problems other than to say I am running 13.10 64 bit on my laptop and was able to install Google Earth with instructions I found online. I just used it half an hour ago to view a street address at street level

edit: This might p;oint you in the right directionhttp://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...8#post12819438

[Jim_Granite]

This might p;oint you in the right directionhttp://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...8#post12819438

I've been trying web-solutions for an hour (including trying the 32-bit Google-Earth Deb file); and all are failing miserably.
There is not a single howto on the net that actually works. You have to know something that is not in the instructions to make it work.

This sequence of cryptic steps came the closest to working, but still failed miserably:
http://linuxg.net/quicktip-how-to-pr...cy-salamander/

Here's a history log of the commands that I ran, but, there were far too many dependencies for me to resolve:
$ wget https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/..._1.1.0_all.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i googleearth-package_1.1.0_all.deb
$ sudo apt-get install -f
$ make-googleearth-package
$ sudo dpkg -i googleearth_6.0.3.2197+1.1.0-1_amd64.deb
$ sudo apt-get install libfreeimage3 lsb-core libcurl3 libsm6 libfontconfig1 libxt6 libxrender1 libxext6 libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri
(this fails, due to numerous dependencies)
$ sudo apt-get install -f
$ which google-earth
=> ./google-earth
$ google-earth
=> ./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libGLU.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

[monkeybrain20122]

It is not that Canonical tries to kill ge, but bad packaging on goolge's part. The rpm doesn't install on Fedora either but for a different reason. The work around is to take the deb (or rpm) file apart and rebuild it.

Down load the ge 64 bit deb, say you put it on the Desktop. Then right click > extract here and it will create a folder called google-earth-stable_current_amd64,
then delete the original .deb. Now open the extracted folder, navigate to the sub-folder "DEBIAN", open the control file, remove the dependency ia32-lib and save the change (you may also want to delete the hidden file ~control)

Now rebuild the .deb with the command (assuming your google-earth folder is on your Desktop)

dpkg -b Desktop/google-earth-stable_current_amd64

Then it will produce a new .deb and you can just right click to install it with gdebi or Software Centre.

To run ge you need additional dependencies

sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 lsb-core

[SuperFreak]

I've been trying web-solutions for an hour (including trying the 32-bit Google-Earth Deb file); and all are failing miserably.
There is not a single howto on the net that actually works. You have to know something that is not in the instructions to make it work.

This sequence of cryptic steps came the closest to working, but still failed miserably:
http://linuxg.net/quicktip-how-to-pr...cy-salamander/

Here's a history log of the commands that I ran, but, there were far too many dependencies for me to resolve:
$ wget https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/..._1.1.0_all.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i googleearth-package_1.1.0_all.deb
$ sudo apt-get install -f
$ make-googleearth-package
$ sudo dpkg -i googleearth_6.0.3.2197+1.1.0-1_amd64.deb
$ sudo apt-get install libfreeimage3 lsb-core libcurl3 libsm6 libfontconfig1 libxt6 libxrender1 libxext6 libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri
(this fails, due to numerous dependencies)
$ sudo apt-get install -f
$ which google-earth
=> ./google-earth
$ google-earth
=> ./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libGLU.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

There is a comment in that link that should help you(bottom of article). Quoting it says:

noop says:
November 27, 2013 at 4:55 am

It works perfect,after a slight change. THX Geekster!
This is how I did it:
1: $ wget https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/209784349/mix/googleearth-package_1.1.0_all.de^C
2: $ sudo dpkg -i googleearth-package_1.1.0_all.deb
3: $ sudo apt-get install -f
4: $ make-googleearth-package
!!so far so good, but then…
5: $ sudo dpkg -i googleearth_6.0.3.2197+1.1.0-1_amd64.deb
then again like above…
6: $ sudo apt-get install -f
Reply

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

google earth 7 wont run on 12.10 even with the 32bit libaries
and google earth 6 has a broken search feature (obsolete search url)
i don't have any 32bit installs, i dont use anything 32bit, if i cant get 64bit versions don't use it, nothing should be 32bit anymore, we have had 64bit cpus for a decade or so now

[monkeybrain20122]

GE 7 64-bit works on 13.10, just follow my instructions above.

[Newbunto]

GE 7 64-bit works on 13.10, just follow my instructions above.

And yet it doesn't.

I've hacked the deb file to get it even to install. Successfully installed it.

When I run Google Earth it just bombs (with the same messages that everyone who has a problem gets, if run from shell). Get splash screen, get main window (including showing my placemarks) and then bomb.

If anything Google Earth has got worse. When I first upgraded to Ubuntu 13.10 Google Earth would bomb most of the time on startup but given some patience (i.e. just keep starting it) it could usually be made to start and then once started it would be usable and stay up. However a few updates after that, I now can't start it at all. Even with 20 attempts to run it, it will just bomb on startup 20 times i.e. completely unusable, completely broken.

Google Earth version appears to be 7.1.2.2041-r0 (That's from dpkg-query as obviously I can't ask Google Earth itself.)

[monkeybrain20122]

Not sure why it doesn't work for you. You said you upgraded to 13.10, any possibility of corrupt configurations? (hidden file .google-earth in home)