Ubuntu – Google Earth shows a black screen and options are greyed out

11.1064-bitgoogle earth

I have installed the latest .deb Google Earth from Google, but the Google window is black (where the earth should be) Plus all 3D options are greyed out.

I have checked my graphics card, and 3D is enabled.

As shown here:

pst007x@pst007x-ubuntu64:~$  /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p  
OpenGL vendor string:   Tungsten Graphics, Inc
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ironlake Mobile 
OpenGL version string:  2.1 Mesa 7.11

Not software rendered:    yes
Not blacklisted:          yes
GLX fbconfig:             yes
GLX texture from pixmap:  yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program:        yes
GL fragment program:      yes
GL vertex buffer object:  yes
GL framebuffer object:    yes
GL version is 1.4+:       yes

Unity 3D supported:       yes
pst007x@pst007x-ubuntu64:~$

I have never been able to get Google earth to work on Radeon, Nvidia and Intel cards.

I have followed installation instructions, but no luck.

What is odd that in the options menu, the 3D settings page is all greyed out, I am unable to select any option.

I have looked at other threads and no answers.

I have set my DNS to manual, ipv6 is off….

I am at a loss on this one…

UPDATE:

I now get the error: We are unable to connect to the Google Earth servers

However I do not use a Proxy. I tried opening all ports in my routers firewall.

Still only a black window.

Now using Ubuntu 11.10 64bit..

Best Answer

Which (or any) of these methods have you tried?

Method A: (download binaries)

wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/earth/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install lsb-core
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs    (needed for Ubuntu 11.10, 64bit)

sudo apt-get install google-earth-stable

Method B: (download & compile)

sudo apt-get install build-essential lsb-core
sudo apt-get install googleearth-package

sudo make-googleearth-package --force
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