Here is how I installed Processing on my Linux Acer Aspire One. It took a little bit of time and I learned something also in the process. BTW, I can’t imagine a less convenient name (processing) to look for in the Internet : ANYTHING related to computers has to do with processing ! LOL

The steps :

I Downloaded processing-0148.tgz from processing.org. The file will go to the ‘Downloads’ directory.
Then I unpacked Processing-0148.tgz to the directory Processing-0148 inside the ‘Downloads’ directory.

Went to Java Sun website and downloaded Java SDK for Linux (jdk-6u10-linux-i586.bin).
Followed the install instruction from Sun specifically for the self-extracting bin :

cd /usr/share
sudo su
./home/user/Downloads/jdk-6u10-linux-i586.bin
That is : changed directory to where I wanted to JDKto be installed into, became root and executed the bin to install the JDK. Answered yes when required to agree to the terms of license.
A few moments more and JDK was installed.

Than moved Processing directory to /usr/share :
mv /home/user/Downloads/processing-0148 /usr/share/

Now the trick suggested by Fry and Reas necessary to make processing use the JDK and not the IcedTea Java which won’t work for processing and that is supplied with the Aspire One :

cd /usr/share/processing-0148
mv java java.bak
ln -s /usr/share/jdk1.6.0_10 java

The latter two steps backup the original java directory of processing and create a crosslink to the installed JDK.

To execute processing:

cd /usr/share/processing-0148/

./processing

That’s it.