LINUX IS A NIGHTMARE! GOOGLE EARTH and LINUX

Here is what the Linux user must go through to install Google Earth under Linux. No wonder Linux is still at less than 1 percent marketshare.

Just to rub salt in the wounds of the opensores, all I did with Windows was click setup.exe and it was installed.

I like the first line of the procedure:

"Installation of GoogleEarth on Gentoo is quite easy when you know exactly what to do"

EASY?

WTF!!!

THAT IS EASY?

Maybe for a dorko.

I'd hate to see what opensores users call difficult.

Here is the procedure;;;;;;;;

Installation of GoogleEarth on Gentoo is quite easy when you know exactly what to do. In fact there are many users posting on the wine bugtracker only because they miss some WINEDLLOVERRIDES or don't set the right Windows version at the right moment. edit Installation

Let's begin the installation of Google Earth from scratch.

* First emerge wine 0.9.x

emerge app-emulation-wine

Go make some tea or other fun things

* Then run wine from the command line to create the ~-.wine directory. * (Not necessary with 0.9.8) Then you have to install the Microsoft DCOM98 (Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) for Windows 98). To achieve that, you have to set the default windows version to Windows98 through the winecfg utility. You can then download DCOM98 here like this:

wget

and install it :

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ole32=n" wine DCOM98.EXE

* (May not be necessary) Download psapi.dll from ~-.wine-drivec-windows-system32 * The next step is the installation of Google Earth. You first have then launch the wine installation. To be able to do this, you have to set the default windows version to WindowsXP through the same winecfg utility. You can then launch the installation

wine GoogleEarth.exe (If that doesn't work, try WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ole32,oleaut32,rpcrt4=n" wine GoogleEarth.exe (or whatever your setup file is called).)

* Finally you have to launch Google Earth with some WINEDLLOVERRIDES

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ole32,usp10,msvcrt=n" wine PATHTOGOOGLEEARTH-GoogleEarth.exe (or "usp10=n" in 0.9.8)

In order to fix the menus thing you need to edit Program Files-Google-Google Earth-kvw-defaultlt.kvw, making sure to save it in DOS format (you can use unix2dos to make sure it's in DOS format) to look like this: File: Program Files-Google-Google Earth-kvw-defaultlt.kvw

Just resize the earth window and the bottom navigation thing. You might want to Enable a Virtual Desktop at 1024 X 768. You can change this and

* You may also wish to make an alias for the above command, something like

echo "alias gEarth='WINEDLLOVERRIDES=-"ole32,usp10,msvcrt=n-" wine

make sure you change the PATHTOGOOGLEEARTH, and launch with gEarth

* Enjoy !!!

edit Problems Issues

* If Google Earth complains about the initialisation of msvcrt, directory (usually ~-.wine-drivec-Program Files-Google-Google Earth) Note: Google Earth supplies it's own msvcrt.dll; I had to overwrite it whit the one found at dll-files. * If you have troubles with the Google Earth menus, you can hide them by hitting Ctrl+1 (remove bottom panel) and Ctrl+2 (remove left panel) * If you have troubles with fonts, I have no workaround (if you have one, please post it) (Microsoft core fonts for the Web could be to be displayed in wine-0.9.2)

-update : possible workaround (works with wine-0.93) : copyusr-share-corefonts to your home-directory. First a .fonts needs to be made in your home-dir. Then copyusr-share-corefonts-*.* to ~-.fonts . Check if your ~-.wine-dosdevices-c:-windowsdirectory has a fonts-dir that is linked to your ~-.fonts .

* If it complains about psapi.dll, download it and put it in .wine-drivec-windows-system * Sometimes GoogleEarth said that it has encountered a problem and needs to close. If You don't click on Ok it could proceed and works well (Wine 0.9.3 with World of Warcraft patch) * Ubuntu 5.10 with ATI GFX, had to turn Vertex Shader Support to "emulation" and untick "Allow Pixel Shader Support" to get past the splash screen (Wine 0.9.3). I'm now stuck with GE not wanting to log in (claims it can't see the Google Earth Servers). WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ole32,oleaut32,rpcrt4=n" wine GoogleEarth.exe , PATHTOGOOGLEEARTH-GoogleEarth.exe

Creating symlink to corefonts doesn't help. Any idea?

* Using wine-0.9.5, all software installed via winetools, and following all these directions and suggestions, google earth graphics *work*, but I *still* have "the font problem", which I will describe further - Font size and spacing is grossly incorrect. Fonts are small, horizontal spacing on screen appears inaccurate, vertical placement on screen is nearly impossible to determine due to huge spaces between letters -- a 12-character tag in about a 12-point font may take up the width of the entire screen. Can someone who does not have this font problem please describe your setup and specificially if your wine install uses a real Windows C: drive

* Font issue: Use the command line above. usp10.dll must be in your C:-windows-system folder. This solved the fonts issue for me. If you get "fixme:uniscribe" messages from wine you are using the wrong (builtin, not native) usp10.dll.

* If it doesn't or stops "working" try setting "Enable a Virtual Desktop" in winecfg and running it with -opengl.

* Using wine-0.9.7: Error: "QDir::readDirEntries: Cannot read the directory: C:-Program Files-Google-Google Earth-.kmztmp". Solution (someone posted this for the mac version): in your google earth dir type "ln -svar-tmp.kmztmp". This seems to work!

* Using wine 0.9.6: Error: "OpenGL not supported". When I set it to

* I got round that problem by changing my xorg.conf depth to 16 rather than 24.

* If GE installation reports an error -5009, do the following according to

cd PATHTODRIVEC-ProgramFiles-; mv Installshield InstallshieldOLD

and then start the installation again from the path, where GE Setup is located.

* If it complains that it can't read ...-Keyhole-Keyhole2 EC-myplaces.kml (note the spaces in the path), create those directories if necessary, and copy defaultmyplaces.kml from the Google Earth directory.

---Added by alamuru420123---

* In case you're behind a proxy, GoogleEarth takes up the proxy settings from internet explorer. Since IE stores proxy settings in the registry, this is quite easy to address. Run 'regedit' in a console and the WINE registry editor will pop up. Add these to the registry directly:

Code:

HKEYCURRENTUSER-Software-Microsoft-Windows-CurrentVersion-Internet Settings "ProxyEnable"=dword:00000001 "ProxyOverride"="127.0.0.1"

and it should connect. ---End of addition---

* If there is no render window, or it is completely black, make sure you are running X in 16-bit mode. This worked for me though it turns out Google Earth is far too slow to be usable anyway.

edit Thanks

* vishnoo for testing the procedure * Wine Application Database for the great amount of datas