EmmonsNet

I love using Google Earth on one of the windows workstations at the office. But, until tonight, I did not use it very much in Linux.

I use Slackware on my desktop workstation and home and Fedora 9 on my laptop. With both distributions of Linux, Google Earth ran at a glacial pace. The maps rendered partially at times, others they would tile incorrectly showing the same map tile over and over. Always it took several long moments for the map to refresh with any input.

It was frustrating as hell! So, I abandoned the idea of using Google Earth on linux and contented myself to using it only on Windows.

All this while I was making the classic 'newbie' mistake. Back in the mid '90s when I was fist learning Linux, many of the gurus in the #linux channels of the IRC networks never failed to tell me RTFM when I would ask the simplest questions. At first I thought they were being elitist and mean.

So, I said 'To hell with them .. who do they think they are?!?! I'll get this running the way I want it on my own. I'll show them!'.  I started to actually read the docs that came with linux and the open source apps many of the distributions included.

It was about the time I compiled my own kernel for the first time, that it dawned on me that what those meanie elitest linux gurus did was giving me the best advice ever. By Reading The F***ing Manual, I actually learned so much more than I dreamed.

Now it's almost 15 years later and I consider myself somewhat a veteran with linux and many open source applications. I am far from running out of new things to learn and being forced to go back to the basics ( aka RTFM ).

Like what happened with my attempts to get Google Earth to run properly.

If I would have read the documentation that Google has about their application in the first place, I would have known to make sure I was running the most current stable versions of OpenGL / Mesa.

Damn ... never too old to pull a newbie move, eh?

So, if you are reading this and wondering what in the hell is wrong with Google Earth on your Linux desktop, I must tell you in the most kind and caring way - RTFM.

Now that my Mesa libs have been updated on my Fedora 9 laptop and Earth is running just fine, I'll upgrade the OpenGL on my Slack powered desktop.