Hi All,
I recently installed OpenSUSE11.2 with GNOME, very happy with it, no going back to M$!
I’m struggling with Google Earth. It installed OK from the terminal, started up first time but crashed after loading? I was able to use GEarth for a few minutes then the system froze and i had to power off to regain control.
A warm welcome to the forums. You’ve come to the right place. Please tell us what the video card in your computer is, and if you installed a proprietary driver for it.
Enjoy
richardveevers wrote:
> Hi All,
> I recently installed OpenSUSE11.2 with GNOME, very happy with it, no
> going back to M$!
> I’m struggling with Google Earth. It installed OK from the terminal,
> started up first time but crashed after loading? I was able to use
> GEarth for a few minutes then the system froze and i had to power off to
> regain control.
>
>
GoogleEarth requires a pretty strong 3D graphics card…what is yours
ATI, nVidia? and have you installed the proprietary driver?
see http://en.opensuse.org/Nvidia or http://en.opensuse.org/Ati as
appropriate…
and, also (if you have not yet found them):
openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users
http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php?t=431899
http://forums.opensuse.org/new-user-how-faq-read-only/424611-new-users-opensuse-pre-install-general-please-read.html
http://forums.opensuse.org/new-user-how-faq-read-only/424615-new-users-suse-11-2-pre-installation-please-read.html
welcome…yes, it is a pretty steep learning curve…it will flatten
out about the time you run out of eyeballs…
the more you read the easier it is to ask the right questions…
also, give a try using google to search the forums here, using the
site specifier…for, example i know there are lots of good words on
GoogleEarth, try
site:forums.opensuse.org googleearth crash
however! i’m pretty sure your problem is graphics…
–
palladium
Sweeeeeet, thanks for the welcome! No doubt I’ll be spending time here! I’m hugely impressed by opensuse and willing to tweak and play! I’ve no programming experience and would consider myself very much a novice who’s willing to learn.
I ran Hardware Information in YaST and found
Radeon X300(PCIE) and Radeon X300SE
The CPU is an Intel P4 3.00Ghz
I’ll have a look at the recommended sites.
Any offers for a particular download to save my usual trial and error approach would be more than welcome!
I’d appreciate any help as to how to start helping by sending error reports. The least I can do for this amazing open source project.
Cheers all
richardveevers wrote:
> Any offers for a particular download to save my usual trial and error
> approach would be more than welcome!
follow the yellow brick road laid out in the references already given,
and you might avoid a lot of trial and error…the more you read the
less error you will trial yourself into…(and, it takes less time to
not break your system than to un-break it)
and, good luck because unlike other famous operating systems this one
is moving at fast pace…that is, by the time you try to fix your it
may fix itself though an update…
or, unfortunately an update tomorrow might break what you fixed today…
patience is a virtue…
–
palladium
Thanks folks I followed the help pages and, i think, installed the proprietary nvidia driver, lets see how google earth goes
Trouble is it looks like you have an ATI graphics card and an (by the terms of ATI and not me) old one at that. I believe they don’t provide proprietary driver support for your card. As mentioned above to achieve good GoogleEarth results you really need the proprietary drivers…
So to cut a long story short, you may need to replace your graphics card. Please note this is not a fault of Linux but a business decision by ATI/AMD. Like I said though double check my info just in case I’m wrong.
google “the perfect suse linux desktop 11.2” and they have great instructions for installing google earth, skype, picasa and some other apps that are not installed with the default setup and they are working great on my thinkpad t42p that is a pretty old laptop!
Maybe the op won’t be back if he installed the NVIDIA driver for his ATI card. 
gogalthorp wrote:
> Maybe the op won’t be back if he installed the NVIDIA driver for his ATI
> card.
i was thinking the same thing…and, wondering how s/he was gonna do
that…and recover…
–
palladium
As I see it the only chance to get that chip to work with GE is to use the radeon driver. If you’re still here boot into runlevel 3 by typing 3 at the grub menu and then enter. Log in as root and issue the following command:
sax2 -r -m 0=radeon
Accept it as is just hit OK and exit sax2, then issue the following command:
init 5
If all goes well you can log in and test if GE works.
If all is mess boot into runlevel 3 again and delete the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf and you’ll be back where you started.
Thanks for the advice, i’m working my way slowly through the offers and pages. I’ll keep dropping in an updating this post. I think I’ve installed latest drivers. I’ve noticed that while VLC plays mp4s and other video files perfectly, I have problems with jerky video playback online, particularly BBC Iplayer?
Hi Hank
Tried that to no apparent improvement. Any other ideas. I’m interested in improving online streaming video playback, in particular BBC iPlayer.
Thanks again
Well for me at least the radeon driver works with Google Earth, chip is an integrated Xpress 1250 so I’ve never expected much performance, I just liked the idea to have it cheap and simple. As it seems to be ATI’s policy to offer a very short time of support and the development of the radeonhd driver has come to a stall I’ve decided to switch over to Nvidia.
I’ve not had much luck with ATI in the past.
How do you find Nvidia?
I don’t intend to play games or edit video. It really only needs to be able to surf and stream video, oh and run google earth:)
Thanks all, I dumped Gnome for KDE and playback is fine! Haven’t taken Google Earth for a spin yet.
I just installed Google Earth .bin on 11.2 with ati 9250 and kde. On the first run it worked fine until I tried to switch to another window (Opera) and that’s when system froze, no mouse, no keyboard input, nothing.
Since then system freezes on Google Earth start up.
On the first run everything worked, btw, all kinds of layers, zooming in and out, everything, so I don’t think it’s a driver problem, there must be some KDE conflict.
Is it a dependencies problem? Would building an RPM and installing from there help?
Where can I see the crash log?
Hi,
I am trying to get Google Earth to run on my T42 and getting the crash immediately after the starting logo. Running 11.1 not 11.2. Please could you let me know if you had to install any patches or did GE run without a hitch?
Just started on this problem but if you have any ideas please let me know.
Regards,
Budgie2
Again did you install the propritary driver for your video? Which video chip?
If you read this thread there are instruction pages referenced for all the common video devices. Read them.
GE requires 3D acceleration.
Hi,
ATI Radeon LW. 3D acceleration turned on. No idea what driver as this was auto selected during installation. Will investigate.