I installed it from the repositories by adding medibuntu:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu

It works for me just fine. It does require some dependencies not normally
installed, but if you use the repos then it will install them for you. I am not
sure if this will address your problem. Sometimes crazy things can happen
depending on what else you have installed and what libraries they might have
that conflict with others once you venture outside of the repositories.

This is a known issue. Follow the instructions here:

tombuntu.com/.../how-to-install-google-earth-5-on-ubuntu\


I got it to install/run last night.

It needs a very good graphics card and lots of RAM to run it, what have
you got?

When this HP Pavilion Slimline computer was a 64 bit Vista box, it ran Google
Earth just fine, but I'm not having any luck with Ububtu 8.10x32. I have
bookmarked a couple of sites that may provide some insight to my problem, so I'm
still working and learning and having fun. One of the things that has been
suggested is to try Google Earth 4.2, some have suggested that it may be a
little easier to get going on my PC.

I do have U 8.10x64 running on the machine too, so maybe I'll try Google Earth
5.0 there the next time I boot up the computer.

The video card in this HP box is an nVidia GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 in a PCI
slot with 250 megs of ram available.

I'm building another computer soon, if this isn't enough video card, what would
you suggest for my next motherboard/video/sound hardware.

The next computer will be used primarily as a music recording studio.

I would not suggest any set up because there are just so many out there,
but just suggest that to run today's software you do need a min of 1gb
RAM and 2 or 3gb would not go amiss. The Processor needs to run at min
1.6ghz and better at 3.2 or more.

As to graphic/video card. Most motherboard can with inbuilt but you can
get one with a slat to put a better one in and that need to be the best
you can afford.

Remember though that the MB will control just how fast the processor
will run so you need to get a MB that will take the Processor and RAM
you desire.