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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."
Now for China...
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
For finally making a Linux version. Downloading it right now...
What, I'm supposed to trust Google's binary?
Looking for secret nuclear plants in Iran?
-DBS
Sigs suck!
$ googleearth
Segmentation fault
$
Also today - Google's free version of Sketchup for the Mac is available: Download here
More info on Sketchup - it's basically a super-intuitive CAD program for quickly getting 3D ideas down on paper.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Please see the Earth support site
Well, it finally happened... Google took over. But it's one thing to take the planet over, but quite another to provide support for it too. Man, I'd hate to be be at the other end of the support line... wonder if you need to run the standard Google employment gauntlet to be first-tier support?
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
(Mod company) +1 Not Evil
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
"Thanks so much Google" - for finally making a Linux version .... of anything.
Did anyone follow the link over there to Google SketchUp? I am amazed that this program hasn't gotten any publicity. Some details from the site:
"SketchUp is a simple but powerful tool for quickly and easily creating, viewing and modifying your 3D ideas.
* Click on a shape and push or pull it to create your desired 3D geometry.
* Experiment with color and texture directly on your model.
* Real-time shadow casting lets you see exactly where the sun falls as you model.
* Select from thousands of pre-drawn components to save time drawing.
And once you've built your models, you can place them in Google Earth, post them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies. Google SketchUp is free for personal use. No registration is required."
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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?
IF you go to this WindWindCentral page, you'll learn that Google Earth's open source competitor is readying Linux and Mac versions of NASA World Wind. You can learn a lot about WW here and a lot about GE here.
"NASA is currently making plans for World Wind 1.5. This version will be available for multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux and the Macintosh."
Animoog.org
If you never go outside, it can show you what the world looks like.
For the rest of us, take a GPS datalogger when boating, biking, driving, etc. Then import the data into Google Earth to have a satellite image with your trek pre-drawn on it.
...about no publicity?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Actually it can be done, i did it some time ago but the peculiar behaviour of the actual viewing portal and the toolbars made it pretty cumbersome, http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?versionId=3254 had some tips.
Still, i'm very pleased that google have chosen to put the time and effort they have into their recent linux ports, this will be far more useful... ok, maybe just fun then, than picasa.
Software Freedom Day!.
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?
I'm trying not to troll here but I don't really "get" the point of Google Earth. I understand that it's cool to look around cities and famous places but is that it? Am I missing something?
Yes.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
I'm trying not to troll here but I don't really "get" the point of Google Earth. I understand that it's cool to look around cities and famous places but is that it? Am I missing something?
I feel a little bad for you. Don't you experience any sort of wonder and amazement that you can look at just about any point on the planet, all from the comfort of your own chair? I mean, even if it wasn't useful for getting maps, creating driving routes, and all that, isn't it still an amazing achievement to you? GoogleEarth is a significant cultural and technological achievement.
And how fitting that Google, of all companies, has provided this free of charge to everyone on Earth.
The fact that GoogleEarth exists at all is the point.
This is no offense to you, personally, but how sad is it that, in our modern era, we can create stunning accomplishments that overshadow any and all accomplishments in the entirety of human history and so many of us still have the lack of appreciation to say "That's it?".
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
When run "sudo GoogleEarth . . . " it creates a directory in /usr/local/google-earth. That directory is chock full of .so files, not .DLL files. Also Icculus (Ryan Gordon) is "not a big fan of wine". Ryan and most of the folks who hang their hats at icculus.org are former employees or had connections to Loki Software, a company that made NATIVE PORTS of games.
One other chap who worked at Loki then moved on to Epic Software and brought us NATIVE ports of UT2003 and UT2004.
It's definitely native.
Thanks to Gordon and I hope you had fun working with the folks at Google.
This is indeed a great day, google earth was the only app I ever used on my laptop under Windows.
Yeah, it's not perfect yet, read the forums, play around with it, tweek it and it'll go.
Commercial Realestate
(I COULD be wrong, of course, but icculus is a fairly major native Linux porter, so I'd doubt that he'd be working on a wine port.)
Yes, you're missing something. But a lot of people are, believe me ;-)
There are 4 versions of Google Earth. Most people know about the free version only. The other Google Earth versions gives you way more features, including GIS-like features.
Animoog.org
So what you're saying is, "Google Earth helped a geek get laid"?
Sounds like the beginnings of a marketing campaign, if I ever heard one...
Reality has a liberal bias
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?
The glass is neither half full nor half empty. It is dirty and I don't do dishes!
What about bsd and osx support? any chance?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
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...)
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
Ok, so now we've got Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.06 (among other excellent distros), FireFox, Thunderbird, and now Picasa and Google Earth. In the foreseeable future we'll have an OpenOffice suite that runs a little faster and we'll have a legitimate iTunes competitor, Songbird.
:-)
Things are looking up for the Linux desktop, and for best-in-class software that runs on it. It's an exciting time to be a Linux fan, no?
clunky with a capital K
Given Qt's close association with KDE, and the naming conventions that have arisen for KDE apps, "clunKy" or "Klunky" sound like appropriate terminology.
Finally! we got through :)
Well it seemed funny to me anyways.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Chris
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
This would mean you're not running it under KDE then. In this case, try running `qtconfig` first and play with the settings, you might be able to get a slightly better look.
I could be way off base here, but isn't the whole point of the Wine project not to produce a windows emulator but libraries that can be substituted for the Windows libraries your program is using to allow it to easily run on linux? If so I'd say Picasa is a shining example of the Wine projects maturity
There is more to the world we live in than "cities and famous places". I can spend hours and hours on Google Earth, just looking at mountains in the Rockies or Andes for example. The physical world interests me, landforms, geology, physical geography in general. To me, Google Earth is one of the most significant pieces of educational software ever released on any format. Someone in Ohio or Oostende can gain an appreciation of the landforms of Papua New Guinea, fly through the Grand Canyon or explore the Antarctic Peninsula without ever leaving their desks, things they will probably never get a chance to do in real life.
The question you ask is analogous to asking "what's the point of any form of learning that doesn't further our everyday lives?".
Answer: "Some people find it interesting." If software formats and web 2.0 are more interesting to you than the High Himalayas, then that's your bag (...), but you have to appreciate that other's tastes and interests vary.
Understood - an earlier poster in the thread pointed out the typographical inconsistencies.
Without knowing the details of your system, I cannot say what you're problem is, but you appear to be doing something wrong. It was a very simple install on my P4 FC4 system, and works exactly as it should
Good to know. Perhaps I'll try again, although given the simplicity of the process it's hard to say what went wrong.
And thanks to the parent poster for playing. Please let us know when the free map toy that you create works better.
Sorry if you thought I sounded sarcastic, or if my accurate reporting of my experiences hurt your feelings in some way. That wasn't my intent. I do appreciate Google's efforts and am sincere in hoping that it works better next time.
sjeesh, leave a hint about Linux support and the Linux zealots stamp it into the ground. "Oh doesn't look nice", "Where is the source", "It doesn't run on my really really exotic Linux distribution", "How can I trust a binary distribution".
Basically people, "beep beeeeep" and get a life. You guys grab any opportunity to tell the world you are "cool" because you use Linux but all you do is complain while playing Windows games in a dark corner when nobody is looking and if you don't like Google Earth....
DON'T BLOODY USE IT!
Google produced as part of their competitive strategy/because so many people asked for it, and the original poster is doing them a favour by trying and commenting on it (though one can always try harder to be constructive, it does warn some people that the release doesn't work that well).
I get a little sick of people saying "Take the half working gesture and be happy about it," as if there weren't any point to it in the first place.
Why does the Google Pack EULA ask me to agree not to do something that's physically impossible?
From the Google Pack EULA:
Who in this universe has an infinite number of computers, or would install a piece of software an infinite number of times? Why don't also they require me to agree not to perform an infinite number of other impossible tasks? Why are so concerned about preventing people with infinite numbers of computers and patience installing their software?
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
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.
Perhaps some Linux users want software that installs and just works, without having to figure out crap about compiling versions, missing libraries, etc. Joe Sixpack don't care for Stallmanism, he just wants his software to work. Hence, believe it or not, there is a market for Linspire's "Click N Run" service, no matter how abhorent the concept is to some. SuSE Linux for years included software that was proprietary and closed sourced on their production CDs. People still used SuSE. If people want to follow Stallmanism anally, then they have the freedom to choose not to download and install the Google Earth software.
Hi all,
/usr/local/google-earth /usr/local/bin, but does not say which command (googleearth) /etc/X11/xorg.conf
- This seems to be a binary package only, which uses a few common libraries beneath it
- Installs without a hitch on my system, defaults to
- Runs very smooth in Ubuntu 6.06 AMD 64 bit with nvidia driver, but it seems to need root permissions to start (installed with sudo on the 'binary' installer)
- No real desktop integration yet (at least with Gnome)
- Asks to install symlink in
- Probably not a good idea to run with nv driver in X, chech your
- Comes with nice Icon that works in Gnome in root of installation folder
Oh, I got a rather new 3GHz AMD 64/1 Gig, budget (fanless) videocard and 6 Mbit download. Not top of the bill, but quite nice anyway, your experiences may differ.
Unfortunately, it does not seem to be open source. A bit of a shame, the real work is in the infrastructure and obtaining the maps anyway.
LIBTIFF, Version 3.7.3
From CVE-2006-2193:While I doubt Google Earth will be calling this function, this goes to show the danger that users place themselves in when they run software that takes it upon itself to bundle together the libraries that it depends on.
Yes it's native. Google Earth was originally coded using the QT(opia) library so no WINE stuff was needed.
I've installed it and it runs amazingly smooth and looks great.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
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.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
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? :-)
OK, first things first. I am serving in the Army as an enlisted Military Policeman. Currently stationed at Fort Hood in the 1st Cavalry Division, I came back from a 1 year tour in Iraq in early/mid 2005. In Baghdad the military is using a "new" tool (that DARPA has been working on for a number of years) that easily allows collaborative efforts and battle tracking. (I just googled for it, and the name is out in the open with a nice description of it on defense-update.com ... so it _appears_ that I am not "talking out of school" here.)
Anyway, last year around April/May the Cav returns back to the states, we get a little down time, turn most of our trucks and tanks to be "Reset" (rebuilt/refurbished/updated) ... and catch a nice little breather when Katrina hits. The 82nd Airborne gets to New Orleans first (after the National Guard and reserves) and then the Cav.
Being an enlisted Military Policeman gave me a unique perspective to what was going on... and more importantly what was NOT going on. When I worked in Baghdad my job was to coordinate efforts between the Coalition Forces and the Iraqi Police. We tracked what the Iraqi Police were seeing on the Streets and what the military was seeing on the streets and tried to keep everybody on the same page.
Low and behold when I get to New Orleans I discover that I have the PERFECT skill set for this disaster. Military and Law Enforcement experience, VERY knowledgeable on how to push and pull information to and from everybody who needs it, dealing with ALL flavors of law enforcement and coordinating efforts on the fly.
One problem. I don't have a tool to put the coordination together. However, most places (hospitals, Police Stations, FBI, DEA, NYFD, Customs, and the FEMA coordination centers) all have Internet access. Guess what. We have the perfect tool... Google Earth.
Google had recently worked there ASSES off putting current and updated flood information into Google Earth, you could pull up where downed power lines and flooded roads were at, you could transpose the "pre flood" and the "post flood" images, and the downtown area even had 3D models of the buildings.
Oh, and IT WAS FREE... and easy to use... And you can EASILY share information between other people. I put an icon in my Google Earth .KML describing a dead body that needs to be picked up and the proper agencies (who are "subscribed" to my .KML) see that information in SECONDS (or minutes at the latest). There were a limited number of people there who could legally move bodies according to LA law so it was a constant effort to get them to where they needed to be.
You add a VOIP aspect to it and POOF! Instant command and control for the different agencies. It is nigh-impossible to crash google's servers and as long as you had power (which was rapidly becoming a NON issue) and Internet access (same thing) you were able to talk and coordinate your efforts.
The beauty of the system is that as long as each agency updates their little piece of the pie everybody can see and use that data... Even if they don't update it, there was so much overlap that someone would see and report an incident.
One other problem. We are dealing with the CIVILIAN government and FEMA here. They have a major case of "It wasn't grown here"-itis. Everybody I showed it to was amazed and astounded with how easy and efficient it was... and the power of collaboration was something completely new and foreign to almost EVERYBODY involved... except for the 1st Cav. FEMA seems hell bent to spend MILLIONS of dollars setting up a command and control center that only talked to itself... AMAZING. I showed their tech people and some higher ups what Google Earth could bring to the plate and they were impressed. The tech types were ready and willing to embrace the tool, but hesitant because t
Um, yeah. The whole "500 versions" lie is always fun to repeat, but it conveniently ignores reality. If this were true, no binary programs would exist for the platform. This is not the case. id software releases native versions of all their games. Unreal Tournament has as well.
People have been repeating the "it'll never work" assertion since, well, forever, yet every day more stuff works. Reconcile that.