Perform these three lines, if it still doesn’t work, read the workaround described below:

cd ~/.googleearth
wget http://mymediasystem.net/wp/2009/01/libGL.so.1.2
googleearth

If it crashes again, you can give it one further try by removing the lock file and myplaces (back them up, if necessary):

rm instance-running-lock
rm myplaces*
mv /usr/lib32/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib32/libGL.so.1.nogo
ln -s ~/.googleearth/libGL.so.1.2 /usr/lib32/libGL.so.1
googleearth

But it’s a sign, there’s something wrong and you’ll probably will suffer from slow animations.

---

Workaround
I’m running Ubuntu 8.10 x86_64 (Intrepid Ibex). I’ve recently installed the latest NVIDIA Beta driver 180.11 and downloaded Google Earth 4.3(Beta), version 4.3.7284.3916, which is the recommended (default) version, if you press “Download“.
The problem is, that I didn’t installed GoogleEarth version 4.3 Beta before I installed the new NVIDIA Beta driver. (I know, all Beta here). So it can all be just a silly coincidence and one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

But finally I’ve got a workaround, and have got my old GoogleEarth back working.

After making the file executable

chmod 755 ./GoogleEarthLinux.bin

I’ve started it, and got this result: (which means it doesn’t work)

./GoogleEarthLinux.bin
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing Google Earth for GNU/Linux 4.3.7284.3916..............................................................

(setup.gtk2:3592): Gtk-WARNING **: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/engines/libqt4engine.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64

(setup.gtk2:3592): Gtk-WARNING **: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/engines/libqt4engine.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
loki_setup: Suspect size value for option option

loki_setup: Suspect size value for option option

loki_setup: Suspect size value for option option

Installing mimetypes...
Installing desktop menu entries...
Installing desktop icon...
Google Earth has caught signal 11.
Another crash happened while handling crash!

Of course my first though was that this crash is due to my new NVIDIA Beta driver, since this guy has a lot of bug in it yet. Read here for more. But I’ve started to get it to work anyway.