I've looked at the other threads on the Google Earth topic, but I guess my questions boils down to this: Now that I have downloaded Google Earth Linux to my desktop (it is a .bin), how do I enable it as an application I can run?
I've seen some posts saying it works very well.

dfiggy

The .bin file is not executable until you make it executable.

In a terminal, run the command
chomd +x googleearth.bin

or whatever the file name is.

There's a typo in chmod

chmod +x GoogleEarthLinux.bin

Their last bin files have two *huge* bugs.

1. It didn't install at all.
If you get this error:

Install it like this (as root or using sudo):

./GoogleEarthLinux.bin --target /tmp/ge (ignore the error message)
cd /tmp/ge/setup.data/bin/Linux/x86/
mv setup.gtk setup.gtk2
cd /tmp/ge
./setup.sh



2. It crashed when starting it.
The only "fix" for this is closing/disabling the "tips and tricks" window when starting it (you'll only get a second to do this, just click on the window as fast as you can).

After that, it all seems to work (Debian Sid).

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sudo wget http://dl.google.com/earth/client/cu...EarthLinux.bin && chmod +x GoogleEarthLinux.bin && ./GoogleEarthLinux.bin

worked great for me

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The setup.gtk2 part might be fixed by your distro, but how did you get past that "tips and tricks" bug (without disabling it)?

Hi,

I am using Fedora13 and I didn't change any thing, whatever I told in above steps, worked for me!!!

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googleearth-package - utility to automatically build a Debian package of Google Earth

Makes a .deb package which can be removed with apt/aptitude/Synaptic, if you are using Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc.

$ apt-cache policy googleearth
googleearth:
Installed: 5.1.3535.3218+0.5.7-1
Candidate: 5.1.3535.3218+0.5.7-1
Version table:
*** 5.1.3535.3218+0.5.7-1 0
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Too bad Google doesn't make a .deb and put it on their repo like they do for Chrome and Picasa.

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gtk2???

I thought Google Earth was a Qt application!?

Strange.
You're link points to the same buggy bin file (the latest stable) and you didn't add anything else... (ps: you shouldn't tell newbies to download the same file again for no reason).

I get the same crash in Fedora as well.
Are you using the 32bit version?

It's only needed for the installer that comes with the bin file (Loki based).

I would prefer that as well, but it's many versions behind the latest stable...

So while Google Earth uses Qt, its installer uses GTK+?

Yes (and the bug I mentioned is at least one year old and still exists in their beta version as well) ...

Thanks to all for the responses. I have not been able to make any of the suggestions work. I have downloaded GoogleEarthLinux.bin to my desktop. From that point, I do not know the right way to proceed to make it a usable application. The suggestion of using chmod +x GoogleEarthLinux.bin failed as follows:
david@david:~$ chmod +x GoogleEarthLinux.bin
chmod: cannot access `GoogleEarthLinux.bin': No such file or directory
It seems that the desktop is not in the search path for this command.
If this is not how the command should have been given, I'd appreciate the corrections.

dfiggy

You will have to change to the directory where you saved the file:

There is no search path for any command in the way that you are thinking. You generally always have to cd to the directory that contains your files, or use a full or relative path.

There is a search path for the command itself, for instance, you didn't have to type: /usr/bin/chmod, you only had to type chmod, because of the search path. I hope that makes sense.

@ jens:
To my surprise, this worked. I had to be fast though.... It took me a few times, to be fast enough to click Close the startup tips window, but then it worked, and I could then disable the "show tips & tricks" window at startup from within GE, once it was running.

Now GE works

I tried to find the config file to disable this, [would save very fast clicking], but failed.

Google is sometimes very stupid, but I thank you for this solution.