GoogleEarth for Linux has been released

[Chris Jones]

>>
> 3368 frames in 5.0 seconds = 673.481 FPS
> 3367 frames in 5.0 seconds = 673.284 FPS
> 3799 frames in 5.0 seconds = 759.770 FPS

I think thats your problem, those figures aren't so hot.

For comparison, my laptop (now 2.5 years old) has a nvidia geforce 
fx5650, and with the binary nvidia driver I get around 2500 FPS. For new 
cards I have seen much bigger numbers quoted (4k-5k and above).
It also could be the driver you are using doesn't implement some needed 
by google earth ?