Installing the Windows version of Google Earth in WINE

Some Gentoo Linux users have reported that, although the native Linux release of Google Earth crashes, they can run the Windows version successfully under WINE. However, those users have also reported that the Windows installer for Google Earth did not work under WINE and so they copied the C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\ directory from a Windows PC to the virtual C:\ drive in their .wine directory (it would be ‘Program Files (x86)‘ in a 64-bit Windows installation, as Google Earth is a 32-bit application).

Now, if you download the Windows Google Earth installer from the Google Web site, what you get is a file GoogleEarthWin.exe that is 534.6 KiB in size (the size may vary depending on the release). However, you can instead download the Offline Installer using the following URL:

http://dl.google.com/earth/client/advanced/current/GoogleEarthWin.exe

and then you get a file GoogleEarthWin.exe that is 24.3 MiB in size (the size will vary depending on the release), which does run in WINE and does install the Windows version of Google Earth in WINE.

So, you might like to try that if you cannot run Google Earth in Linux but you have WINE installed. However, note that you will be wasting your time if the native Linux version of Google Earth crashes because of its incompatibility with the closed-source ATI or NVIDIA video driver. For example, Google Earth 7.1.2.2041 for Linux crashes on my main laptop using the 14.3_beta version of ati-drivers (AMD ATI Catalyst driver, a.k.a. FGLRX).

Anyway, if you want to install the Windows release of Google Earth under WINE here’s how to do it in a Konsole/Terminal window:

$ cd
$ export WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wine-googleearth
$ export WINEARCH="win32"
$ winecfg
$ cd ./.wine-googleearth/drive_c/
$ wget http://dl.google.com/earth/client/advanced/current/GoogleEarthWin.exe
$ wine GoogleEarthWin.exe

And, to run it later:

$ env WINEPREFIX="/home/fitzcarraldo/.wine-googleearth" WINEARCH="win32" wine C:\\windows\\command\\start.exe /Unix /home/fitzcarraldo/.wine-googleearth/dosdevices/c:/users/fitzcarraldo/Start\ Menu/Programs/Google\ Earth/Google\ Earth.lnk

(Of course replace “fitzcarraldo” with your user name.)

But, as I wrote above, if the native Linux version of Google Earth crashes due to its incompatibility with the closed-source video driver (ATI or NVIDIA), it is highly unlikely the native Windows version will work under WINE.

Bypassing a corporate Web filter when using the command line

or ‘How to bypass a corporate Web filter and download YouTube videos via the command line’

One of the offices where I work uses a Web filter to block access to certain sites, such as YouTube. However, sometimes it is necessary to view blocked Web sites for work purposes. For example, these days a lot of companies or individuals post product reviews on YouTube that are useful for work purposes. In such cases I have used Tor to access the blocked sites in a Web browser such as Firefox, Chrome, Konqueror etc. See my post How to install and use Tor for anonymous browsing or to access country-restricted content from another country for details of how to set up and use Tor with a Web browser.

But sometimes I need to access blocked Web sites from the command line. For example, today I needed to download a YouTube video for work purposes, and I wanted to use youtube-dl to do it. The solution was simple…

First I launched vidalia and polipo as explained in the above-mentioned post on Tor, then I launched another Konsole/Terminal window and entered the commands shown below:

$ # First find out what resolutions are available for the video I want to download:
$ youtube-dl -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Rr4CUoTSQ
Setting language
T3Rr4CUoTSQ: Downloading webpage
T3Rr4CUoTSQ: Downloading video info webpage
T3Rr4CUoTSQ: Extracting video information
[info] Available formats for T3Rr4CUoTSQ:
format code extension resolution note
140 m4a audio only DASH audio , audio@128k (worst)
160 mp4 192p DASH video
133 mp4 240p DASH video
134 mp4 360p DASH video
135 mp4 480p DASH video
136 mp4 720p DASH video
17 3gp 176x144
36 3gp 320x240
5 flv 400x240
43 webm 640x360
18 mp4 640x360
22 mp4 1280x720 (best)
$ # Now try to download the video at the resolution I want:
$ youtube-dl -f 22 -o Clevo_W230ST_overview.flv https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Rr4CUoTSQ
Setting language
T3Rr4CUoTSQ: Downloading webpage
T3Rr4CUoTSQ: Downloading video info webpage
T3Rr4CUoTSQ: Extracting video information
ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

As you can see above, the corporate Web filter blocked youtube-dl from downloading the video.

So I informed the shell session about the local HTTP proxy (polipo) running on my laptop, by assigning and exporting the environment variable http_proxy using the following syntax:

export http_proxy=http://server-ip:port/

which in my case meant the following (refer to my article on Tor):

$ export http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:8123/

and then I was able to download the video from YouTube despite the corporate Web filter:

$ youtube-dl -f 22 -o Clevo_W230ST_overview.flv https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Rr4CUoTSQ
Setting language
T3Rr4CUoTSQ: Downloading webpage
T3Rr4CUoTSQ: Downloading video info webpage
T3Rr4CUoTSQ: Extracting video information
[download] Destination: Clevo_W230ST_overview.flv
[download] 100% of 100.23MiB in 05:50
$

Useful Reference: How To Use Proxy Server To Access Internet at Shell Prompt With http_proxy Variable