Ubuntu – How to get Google Earth installed via .DEB

Try the following command in a terminal:

optirun32 /opt/google/earth/free/google-earth

It works for me.

Couldn't install doesn't mean dpkg didn't try and give up half-way

There's nothing complicated about it. Observe this re-enactment:

$ sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture google-earth-stable_current_i386.deb
...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 google-earth-stable:i386

$ dpkg --list | grep google-earth
iU  google-earth-stable:i386               6.0.3.2197-r0                        

The iU tells you that you wanted this package i-nstalled, but dpkg couldn't configure it, so it was leaving it U-nconfigured, waiting for you to fix it. The error you got dpkg: error processing google-earth-stable:i386 (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured tells you as much in simpler language.

dpkg must be explicitly told to remove a failed install

Just tell dpkg to not bother and remove the package:

sudo dpkg --remove google-earth-stable:i386

And then try installing the 64-bit package again.

Synaptic and apt-get don't care about one-off debs

You got nothing out of Synaptic or apt-get because they aren't aware of your problem. They concern themselves primarily with packages available in the repositories, which you manage through them. They are higher level tools which use dpkg under the hood, but don't care about any problems you create with dpkg unless it concerns them. If you tried to install any package, or Google Earth 64-bit if it was in some repository, with Synaptic or apt-get, they would definitely have whined about it.

Other helpful references

• The .deb file name and package name are usually different. You need the package name to do any operations with dpkg. Use dpkg --list | grep xxxxx where xxxxx is a small part of the file name sure to be in there, like google or earth.

• See this answer for a great explanation of all the two-letter dpkg status flags.