A long overdue update to Google Earth for Linux

Google has finally released Version 7.1.7.2600 of Google Earth for Linux, fixing various crashes and the infamous empty Panoramio window. The last version of Google Earth for Linux that worked properly ‘out of the box’ in Gentoo Linux for me was 5.2.1.1588, and that was several years ago.

The current version of Google Earth in the Portage main tree is 7.1.4.1529. That version does not display Panoramio photos in Gentoo Linux (Stable Branch) on my Clevo W230SS laptop (NVIDIA Optimus), and Version 7.1.4.1529 crashes at launch more often than not. So I was keen to try the new version. Below are the steps I followed to install Version 7.1.7.2600 in the Portage local overlay on the laptop. If you don’t already have a local overlay, see the Gentoo Wiki article Overlay/Local overlay. Don’t forget to copy the files directory and its contents from /usr/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/ to /usr/local/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/ as well.

1. Download the file google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb from the Google Earth Web site (Download the latest version of Google Earth for PC, Mac or Linux).

2. Edit the file /etc/portage/package.use/googleearth and add the line:

=sci-geosciences/googleearth-7.1.7.2600 -bundled-libs

3. Edit the file /etc/portage/package.unmask/googleearth and add the line:

=sci-geosciences/googleearth-7.1.7.2600

4. Edit the file /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords/googleearth and add the line:

=sci-geosciences/googleearth-7.1.7.2600 ~amd64

5. Copy the downloaded binary package to the distfiles directory and rename the package:

root # cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb /usr/portage/distfiles/GoogleEarthLinux-7.1.7.2600_amd64.deb

6. Create an ebuild for the new version and generate a manifest:

root # cd /usr/local/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/
root # cp /usr/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/googleearth-7.1.4.1529.ebuild googleearth-7.1.7.2600.ebuild
root # ebuild googleearth-7.1.7.2600.ebuild manifest

7. Install Google Earth 7.1.7.2600:

root # emerge =googleearth-7.1.7.2600

The package was installed without any trouble:

root # eix -I googleearth
[I] sci-geosciences/googleearth
     Available versions:  {M}(~)7.1.4.1529^m {M}(~)7.1.7.2600^m[1] {+bundled-libs}
     Installed versions:  7.1.7.2600^m[1](00:02:27 02/10/16)(-bundled-libs)
     Homepage:            https://earth.google.com/
     Description:         A 3D interface to the planet

[1] "local_overlay" /usr/local/portage

Google Earth for Linux 7.1.7.2600 launches quickly and without trouble on this laptop, and Panoramio photos are indeed now visible again (finally!). The only issue is one I also came across over a year ago after hacking an earlier version of Google Earth for Linux: If you click on a photo icon and the Panoramio window that opens displays several thumbnails, clicking on a thumbnail results in a white Panoramio window without any photo and thumbnails. Apparently this only happens in KDE. Anyway, the work-around is to right-click on the desired thumbnail and select ‘Open in New Window’.

Getting Google Earth in Gentoo Linux to display Panoramio photos

Well, I decided to get Panoramio photos working in Google Earth installed using the hacked ebuild I posted in April 2014 (see my post Work-around if 64-bit Google Earth crashes in Gentoo Linux).

The modification devised by user amirpli (see Comment #9 in Gentoo Bugzilla Bug Report No. 490066) does not work in my case, as explained in detail in the above-mentioned April 2014 post. I believe this is because I am using the FGLRX video driver, as I have successfully applied amirpli‘s modification in an installation on a PC that has an Intel GPU.

Here is how I got Panoramio photos to display on my main laptop running the FGLRX driver, although my fix is yet another hack: I use 32-bit libraries downloaded from the Web. It works for me, though!

Background

I am running Google Earth 7.1.2.2041 installed from a local overlay (see my above-mentioned April 2014 post) in KDE 4.14.3 under Gentoo Linux ~amd64 with the 3.17.1-gentoo-r1 kernel and FGLRX driver:

# eix ati-drivers
[I] x11-drivers/ati-drivers
     Available versions:
     (legacy) 13.1_pre897^td
     (1)    13.4^td 13.9^td 13.12^td 14.4_p1^td (~)14.6_beta2^td (~)14.9-r2^ftd (~)14.12-r2^td 14.12-r3^td
       {debug disable-watermark +modules multilib pax_kernel qt4 static-libs ABI_X86="32 64" KERNEL="linux"}
     Installed versions:  14.12-r3(1)^td(20:22:04 13/02/15)(modules qt4 -debug -pax_kernel -static-libs ABI_X86="32 64" KERNEL="linux")
     Homepage:            http://www.amd.com
     Description:         Ati precompiled drivers for Radeon Evergreen (HD5000 Series) and newer chipsets

Procedure

1. Download into ~/Downloads/ the following Ubuntu 32-bit packages from http://packages.ubuntu.com/utopic/i386/libs/

$ ls -la *.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users  24060 Mar  1 23:59 libecore-imf1_1.8.6-2ubuntu1_i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 274206 Mar  1 22:59 libfreeimage3_3.15.4-3build1_i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users  52154 Mar  1 23:45 libilmbase6_1.0.1-6.1_i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 135300 Mar  2 00:28 libjasper1_1.900.1-debian1-2ubuntu0.2_i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 106868 Mar  1 23:00 libjpeg-turbo8_1.3.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users  98500 Mar  1 23:39 libopenjpeg5_1.5.2-2_i386.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 189420 Mar  2 00:21 libraw10_0.16.0-6_i386.deb

2. Download into ~/Downloads/ the following 32-bit packages from http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php and http://pkgs.org/

$ ls -la *.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users  57976 Mar  2 00:13 libilmbase6-1.0.2-11.1.2.i586.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 148379 Mar  2 00:03 libilmimf6-1.6.1-alt9.i586.rpm

3. Extract into ~/Downloads/ the following 32-bit libraries from the above-mentioned .deb and .rpm packages:

$ ls -la lib*.so*
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 644568 Apr 27  2014 libfreeimage-3.15.4.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 677340 Apr 27  2014 libfreeimageplus-3.15.4.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 fitzcarraldo users 271780 Jul 15  2012 libHalf.so.6.0.0
-rwxr-xr-x 1 fitzcarraldo users 104044 Jul 15  2012 libIex.so.6.0.0
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 671896 Dec  3 15:06 libIlmImf.so.6.0.0
-rwxr-xr-x 1 fitzcarraldo users  22260 Jul 15  2012 libIlmThread.so.6.0.0
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 342116 Jan 22 18:46 libjasper.so.1.0.0
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 300776 Dec 19  2013 libjpeg.so.8.0.2
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 142604 Apr 26  2014 libopenjpeg.so.1.5.2
-rw-r--r-- 1 fitzcarraldo users 657336 Jul 22  2014 libraw.so.10.0.0

4. Merge the 32-bit Google Earth package from a local overlay, using the ebuild listed in my above-mentioned April 2014 post:

# emerge -C googleearth
# rm -rf /opt/googleearth/
# emerge googleearth::local_overlay

5. Delete the four bundled Qt libs, compile the shim devised by user amirpli (see Comment #9 in Gentoo Bugzilla Bug Report No. 490066) but compile it for 32 bits (‘-m32‘), and edit the googleearth script to use the 32-bit libfreeimage.so.3 that you will copy into /opt/googleearth/ later:

# cd /opt/googleearth
# rm libQt*
# touch baifaao.cpp
# nano baifaao.cpp
# cat baifaao.cpp
/* amirpli 2013/11/28 */
#include <QtCore/QAtomicInt>
extern "C" {
        int _Z34QBasicAtomicInt_fetchAndAddOrderedPVii(QAtomicInt* a, int b) {
                return a->fetchAndAddOrdered(b);
        }
}
# gcc -I/usr/include/qt4 -O3 -m32 -fPIC --shared baifaao.cpp -o baifaao.so
# nano googleearth
# tail googleearth
}

script_path=$(FindPath $0);

cd $script_path;

export LD_PRELOAD=/opt/googleearth/libfreeimage.so.3:/opt/googleearth/baifaao.so
export LC_NUMERIC=en_US.UTF-8 # Must do this if you are using non-US locale.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH ./googleearth-bin "$@"

6. Copy into the Google Earth directory all the libraries downloaded and extracted in Steps 1 to 3 above, and create the necessary symlinks and permissions:

# cd /opt/googleearth
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libfreeimage-3.15.4.so .
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libfreeimageplus-3.15.4.so .
# ln -s libfreeimage-3.15.4.so libfreeimage.so.3
# ln -s libfreeimage.so.3 libfreeimage.so
# ln -s libfreeimageplus-3.15.4.so libfreeimageplus.so.3
# ln -s libfreeimageplus.so.3 libfreeimageplus.so
# chmod +x libfreeimage-3.15.4.so
# chmod +x libfreeimageplus-3.15.4.so
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libjpeg.so.8.0.2 .
# ln -s libjpeg.so.8.0.2 libjpeg.so
# ln -s libjpeg.so libjpeg.so.8
# chmod +x libjpeg.so.8.0.2
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libopenjpeg.so.1.5.2 .
# ln -s libopenjpeg.so.1.5.2 libopenjpeg.so
# ln -s libopenjpeg.so libopenjpeg.so.5
# chmod +x libopenjpeg.so.1.5.2
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libIlmImf.so.6.0.0 .
# ln -s libIlmImf.so.6.0.0 libIlmImf.so
# ln -s libIlmImf.so libIlmImf.so.6
# chmod +x libIlmImf.so.6.0.0
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libHalf.so.6.0.0 .
# ln -s libHalf.so.6.0.0 libHalf.so
# ln -s libHalf.so libHalf.so.6
# chmod +x libHalf.so.6.0.0
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libIex.so.6.0.0 .
# ln -s libIex.so.6.0.0 libIex.so
# ln -s libIex.so libIex.so.6
# chmod +x libIex.so.6.0.0
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libraw.so.10.0.0 .
# ln -s libraw.so.10.0.0 libraw.so
# ln -s libraw.so libraw.so.10
# chmod +x libraw.so.10.0.0
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libIlmThread.so.6.0.0 .
# ln -s libIlmThread.so.6.0.0 libIlmThread.so
# ln -s libIlmThread.so libIlmThread.so.6
# chmod +x libIlmThread.so.6.0.0
# cp /home/fitzcarraldo/Downloads/libjasper.so.1.0.0 .
# ln -s libjasper.so.1.0.0 libjasper.so
# ln -s libjasper.so libjasper.so.1
# chmod +x libjasper.so.1.0.0

Finally, launch Google Earth from your user account, not the root user’s account:

$ googleearth

Clicking on any photo icon in Google Earth should now display Panoramio photos.

If you click on a photo icon and the frame that opens displays several thumbnails, clicking on a thumbnail may result in a white Panoramio frame without any photo and thumbnails displayed. According to user amirpli this problem occurs in KDE but not GNOME. If it does happen in your case, to view the other photos right-click on a thumbnail and select ‘Open in New Window’. This way you will be able to view any of the photos.

It’s nice to be able to see the Panoramio photos again in Linux with the FGLRX driver.

Work-around if 64-bit Google Earth crashes in Gentoo Linux

Google Earth 5.2.1.1588 was the last version of Google Earth for Linux that worked on my main laptop running 64-bit Gentoo Linux. Even the Panoramio photos were displayed (a common complaint amongst users of Google Earth for Linux). But every subsequent version crashed when I launched it. The latest version, 7.1.2.2041, is no exception:

$ googleearth
[0403/012031:ERROR:net_util.cc(2195)] Not implemented reached in bool net::HaveOnlyLoopbackAddresses()
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:WARNING:backend_impl.cc(1875)] Destroying invalid entry.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
[0403/012033:ERROR:nss_ocsp.cc(581)] No URLRequestContext for OCSP handler.
Google Earth has caught signal 11.



We apologize for the inconvenience, but Google Earth has crashed.
This is a bug in the program, and should never happen under normal
circumstances. A bug report and debugging data have been written
to this text file:

/home/fitzcarraldo/.googleearth/crashlogs/crashlog-533ca953.txt

Please include this file if you submit a bug report to Google.

Now, the Google Earth installation package bundles the libraries it needs, so they are used instead of the ‘native’ libraries installed on your machine. A Linux user going by the moniker amirpli worked out how to enable Google Earth for Linux to use the native Qt libraries rather than the Qt libraries bundled with Google Earth, and posted instructions for a number of distributions (see, for example, Comment 9 in Gentoo Bugzilla Bug Report No. 490066). However, even if I apply amirpli‘s fix, Google Earth on my main laptop crashed with almost the same error message as above. Looking through the crash log file that Google Earth generates, I see the following line, which makes me suspect that Google Earth cannot work with the closed-source AMD ATI Catalyst driver (a.k.a. FGLRX):

./libbase.so(_ZN5earth15GfxCardInfoUnix25GetGraphicsCardMemoryInMBERi+0xe)[0x7f011b3e654e]

I noticed a few posts by users of other distributions in various forums saying that they had installed the 32-bit version of Google Earth in their 64-bit (multilib) installations, so I decided to try that in Gentoo. I hacked the ebuild of version 7.1.2.2041 to force it to install the 32-bit version of Google Earth on my 64-bit multilib installation, and installed it via a local overlay.

The hacked ebuild has the following changes from the stock 7.1.2.2041 ebuild:

a) Replace:

SRC_URI="x86? ( http://dl.google.com/dl/earth/client/current/google-earth-stable_current_i386.deb
                       -> GoogleEarthLinux-${PV}_i386.deb )
       amd64? ( http://dl.google.com/dl/earth/client/current/google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb
                       -> GoogleEarthLinux-${PV}_amd64.deb )"

with:

SRC_URI="http://dl.google.com/dl/earth/client/current/google-earth-stable_current_i386.deb
                       -> GoogleEarthLinux-${PV}_i386.deb"

b) Replace:

unpack_deb GoogleEarthLinux-${PV}_$(usex amd64 "amd64" "i386").deb

with:

unpack_deb GoogleEarthLinux-${PV}_i386.deb

c) Replace:

patchelf --set-interpreter /lib/ld-linux$(usex amd64 "-x86-64" "").so.2 ${PN}-bin || die "patchelf failed"

with:

patchelf --set-interpreter /lib/ld-linux.so.2 ${PN}-bin || die "patchelf failed"

If you have not used a local overlay before, it is not difficult — just follow the steps given below.

1. If you have not done it before, tell Portage the location of the local overlay:

# echo 'PORTDIR_OVERLAY="${PORTDIR_OVERLAY} /usr/local/portage/"' >> /etc/make.conf

2. If you have not done it before, give your local overlay a name:

# mkdir /usr/local/portage/profiles
# echo "local_overlay" > /usr/local/portage/profiles/repo_name

3. Create the directories for the local overlay’s Google Earth ebuild and its associated files:

# mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/files

4. Uninstall the non-functioning 64-bit version of Google Earth that you installed from the Portage main tree:

# emerge -C googleearth

5. Copy the main tree’s ebuild and associated files to the local overlay and edit the ebuild as per the changes I listed above:

# cp /usr/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/googleearth-7.1.2.2041.ebuild /usr/local/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/
# cp /usr/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/files/* /usr/local/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/files/
# cd /usr/local/portage/sci-geosciences/googleearth/
# nano googleearth-7.1.2.2041.ebuild

6. Create the manifest for the ebuild and associated files:

# ebuild googleearth-7.1.2.2041.ebuild manifest

7. Finally, install the package:

# emerge googleearth::local_overlay

The 32-bit version of Google Earth works fine in my 64-bit multilib installation, although the Panoramio photos are not displayed, but then Linux users are used to that :-/. Come on Google, you can do better than this!

Update (March 2, 2015): See my post Getting Google Earth in Gentoo Linux to display Panoramio photos for a way to get Google Earth in Gentoo Linux to display the Panoramio photos.

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.