Google Earth v4 Released - Linux Support at Last

chrisd writes "We're very happy to announce that the a new version of Google Earth has been released. It features 3D textured buildings, some neat UI updates, better internationalization and, with this release, a native Linux version is available for download as well. The Google Earth team (with the help of Ryan Gordon) worked very hard to make this possible. Please see the Earth support site and check out the BBS for more information."

Comments

Native?

[spacefight]

To me, the menu looks like the linuxified windows program picasa, again via wine than really native.

Its true, it is a binary. What should I do now?

[bunbuntheminilop]

Its a binary. I had an idea that if I created a new user, and ran the binary as the new user, then everything would be alright, right?

Its not that I don't trust google, but I run Gentoo and don't have many binaries install at all. This might become more common in the future, so how should I protect myself from malicious binaries?

Re:Can someone please tell me..

[CrankyFool]

Well ...

I had a first date planned with someone (this was about 349 days ago, before she became my girlfriend, then fiance); I was supposed to go to an area of town I've not often frequented; worse, the directions were confusing (lots of cloverleaf intersections and the like).

I put it into Google Earth, had it show me the directions AND what the streets actually look like, and this really helped me understand the directions. Does that count?

Re:Can someone please tell me..

[Irish_Samurai]

Commercial Realestate

Re:What's the point?

[Tazmaster75]

Think of the kids! It's an intersting and fun way to learn about the world.

Also, video producers have already started using apps like this in their films... "Loose Change: Second Edition", anyone?

Real Time Imagery for Google Earth

[Alien54]

I think that the reason so many people do not care about Privacy issues is because they relish the idea of spying on their neighbors. I have had more than one person ask me a question which strongly suggested that they thought Google Earth was using real time imagery of their neighborhood.

They wanted to see what their neighbors were doing, or see where their kids were, etc. Nevermind the sunbathers behind the super high fence.

But they still liked the product even if they didn't have those features. I imagine it would be very popular if they could get the features they thought they had.

Works on Fedora Core 5

[bhunachchicken]

Just tried it with Fedora Core 5 (with ATI radeon drivers). Installed with no issues, works fine and works fast. I'm impressed! Thanks Google.

(note - I don't think it's using Wine... couldn't see any Wine related stuff in the process list...)

Re:Specifically

[filesiteguy]

Well, I haven't downloaded Google Earth yet, but Picassa isn't a native Linux client. Though it works it is a WINE applicaiton embedded in a Crossover Office wrapper. I'm curious to see if Earth is native.

Re:Specifically

[DJStealth]

I don't think it's your system that's slow. It appears that Google Earth has been slashdotted.

Re:NASA WorldWind also ready for Linux and MacOSX

[SEMW]

For anyone wanting a quick eye-candy comparison, by a useful stroke of luck they both have 3D pics of Mount St. Helens as showcases on their respective web pages.

Google:
http://earth.google.com/images/mtsth.jpg

Worldwind:
http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/images/b/b6/S rtm.jpg

Font

[cascini]

On my linux box, the fonts are extremely small. Is there anyway to change the font? It seems to use qt, I tried to change qt fonts, but it didn't help.

I'm curious...

[ConceptJunkie]

I've used Google Earth since it was version 1 by Keyhole and only worked on nVidia cards... and you had to pay for it. It's a cool piece of software, but of course version 4 wassn't actually released, it's a beta.

Knowing Google, however, version 3 probably never left beta.

In fact, is anything Google makes besides the search engine NOT beta? Google Groups has been beta since what, 2001? Their use of the word has completely lost any meaning, other than the obvious lawyerese intent of absolving them of any responsibility in case the stuff doesn't work. Like anyone ever takes that responsibility anyway (Microsoft?).

Still, it's cool software.

how hard was the port?

[multi io]

Thanks Google for this amazing program.

What I'm interested in -- how hard was it to port this over to Linux? What about the DirectX->OpenGL transition? How was this done? How much of the source code could be reused? Is there a common code base at all, and if so, will future Windows/Mac/Linux versions of Google Earth be developed (and released) based on that from now on? And how hard would it be to provide binaries for non-x86 Linux, and/or other Unixes?

Any non-classified information on those things? :-)

how to get textures?

[glitch23]

I installed it hoping to see some nice building textures but couldn't figure out how to see them. Simply turning on the 3d buildings layer didn't do it; I still see flat grey boxes. Anyone know how to get them? Do I have to download the textures separately?

Re:Where's the source?

[Spacejock]

I bought VMWare for Linux a couple of years back and the supplier actually phoned me to make sure I hadn't selected it by mistake, and hadn't I really meant the Windows version? Nice of them to ask, but for once I knew what I was doing.