The idea is simple. It's a globe that sits inside your PC. You point and zoom to any place on the planet that you want to explore. Satellite images and local facts zoom into view. Tap into Google search to show local points of interest and facts. Zoom to a specific address to check out an apartment or hotel. View driving directions and even fly along your route. We invite you to try it now. Google Earth is free for personal use. No registration is required. You may (optionally) choose to upgrade to Google Earth Plus.

Features Include:

• Free for personal use
  
• Sophisticated streaming technology delivers the data to you as you need it
  
• Imagery and 3D data depict the entire earth
  
• Terabytes of aerial and satellite imagery depict cities around the world in high-resolution detail
  
• Local search lets you search for restaurants, hotels, and even driving directions. Results show in your 3D earth view.
  
• Easy to layer multiple searches, save results to folders, and share with others
  
• Layers show parks, schools, hospitals, airports, shopping, and more
  
• KML data exchange format lets you share useful annotations and view thousands of data points created by Google Earth users
  
• Practical Uses: Planning a trip
  
• Getting driving directions
  
• Finding a house or apartment
  
• Finding a local business
  
• Exploring the world

• Kernel 2.4 or later
• glibc 2.3.2 w/ NPTL or later
• XFree86-4.0 or x.org R6.7 or later
• CPU: 500Mhz, Pentium 3
• System Memory (RAM): 128MB RAM
• Hard Disk: 400MB free space
• Network Speed: 128 Kbits/sec
• Graphics Card: 3D-capable with 16MB of VRAM
• Screen: 1024x768, "16-bit High Color" screen

Note that Google Earth may work on other configurations not explicitly listed here. The recommended configuration for Linux computers:

• Kernel 2.6 or later
• glibc 2.3.5 w/ NPTL or later
• x.org R6.7 or later

Google Earth has been tested on the following GNU/Linux distributions, but certainly works on others:

• Ubuntu 5.10 or later
• Suse 10.1 or later
• Fedora Core 5 or later
• Linspire 5.1 or later
• Gentoo 2006.0 or later
• Debian 3.1 or later
• Red Hat 9 or later

Please make sure your system has properly-configured OpenGL drivers. If Google Earth appears to be slow and unresponsive, it is likely that your system needs different video drivers.