To properly install Google Earth (along with the required 32bit
dependencies) in Ubuntu 14.04 (or 13.10) 64bit, use the following
commands:
sudo apt-get install libfontconfig1:i386 libx11-6:i386 libxrender1:i386 libxext6:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 libglu1-mesa:i386 libglib2.0-0:i386 libsm6:i386 cd /tmp && wget http://dl.google.com/dl/earth/client/current/google-earth-stable_current_i386.deb sudo dpkg -i google-earth-stable_current_i386.deb sudo apt-get install -f
If you simply install the Google Earth
32bit package on Ubuntu 64bit without the extra dependencies from the
first command above, you'll get errors when trying to start it, like
these:
./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libfontconfig.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libX11.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libXext.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libGL.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
etc.
For Ubuntu 32bit, simply download Google Earth and install it using Ubuntu Software Center, GDebi, dpkg or whatever you prefer.