Please note: ‘Processing’ is only for students in our Senior Primary (5th-6th class) and Secondary School groups. If you are a Junior Primary student (2nd-4th class), please use Scratch.

Downloading Processing for Chromebook | Step By Step Guide

This is a short guide on how to download Processing, one of the main programming languages that we use at The Academy of Code.

Please note: this tutorial covers the steps for Chromebook. If you are using a Windows or Mac PC use this link - https://www.theacademyofcode.com/how-to-download-processing

0. Check you are ready

We need to make sure that Linux (Crostini) is available on your Chromebook. It is generally on any more recent Chromebooks. If Linux (Crostini) is not available on your Chromebook, you won’t be able to download Processing.

  1. Go to settings

  2. Click on search

  3. Type in "Linux" and press enter

  4. Scroll down to the Developers section. If your Chromebook has Linux you should see the “Linux development environment”

  5. If the “Linux development environment” is not already set up, you need to do that now

  6. Click on "Set up"

  7. Go through the setup for Linux. This may take a few minutes

  8. When you are done the terminal will open up and look something like this. We will leave this open and come back to it later

 
 

1. Download the portable zip

  1. Download the Processing portable zip for Linux directly from this link - https://github.com/processing/processing4/releases/download/processing-1301-4.4.1/processing-4.4.1-linux-x64-portable.zip

    1. If there are problems with this link you can find the host page here - https://github.com/processing/processing4/releases

  2. Wait for the file (e.g. processing‑4.4.1‑linux‑x64‑portable.zip) to finish downloading

2. Move the ZIP into “Linux files”

  1. In the files app right-click on the downloaded zip folder and copy it

  2. Click the Linux files in the sidebar and paste the zip folder into it

  3. It may take a minute to paste

3. Unzip & prepare in the Terminal

  1. Open the terminal. You may still have it open from previously

    1. To open a new terminal, click on the launcher

    2. Search for “Terminal” and select “Terminal”

    3. Click on Penguin beneath Linux

  2. When the terminal opens it will likely look like this

  3. NOTE: We are going to write four commands into our terminal. We will press enter after each command to let it run. It is important that these commands are typed carefully and we check that no error occurs

  4. Write the command below into the terminal and press enter

    1. sudo apt update && sudo apt install unzip -y

    2. The terminal will download various applications and will print out many lines of text. Make sure that the end of the text doesn’t indicate that it had any problems

  5. Write the command below into the terminal and press enter

    1. unzip processing-4.4.1-linux-x64-portable.zip

    2. Make sure that this is the name of your downloaded file. Again you will see many lines of text being added to your terminal

  6. Write the command below into the terminal and press enter

    1. cd Processing/bin

    2. You won’t see much change in your terminal

  7. Write the command below into the terminal and press enter

    1. chmod +x Processing

    2. You won’t see much change in your terminal

4. Launch Processing

  1. Write the command below into the terminal and press enter

    1. ./Processing &

    2. You will see many lines of text in the terminal

    3. After a few second Processing should pop up

5. (Recommended) Make Processing a global command

  1. Close down Processing and go back to the terminal

  2. You will need to press enter in the terminal to exit the Processing task

  3. The bottom of the terminal should look like this

  4. While in the same folder as before. Write the command below into the terminal and press enter

    1. sudo ln -s "$PWD/Processing" /usr/local/bin/Processing

  5. Write the command below into the terminal and press enter

    1. Processing &

    2. Processing will open up after a few seconds

6. Running Processing in the future

In the future when you want to open Processing again it will be much easier after completing the steps above

  1. Open the terminal

    1. To do this, click on the launcher

    2. Search for “Terminal” and select “Terminal”

    3. Click on Penguin beneath Linux

  2. Write the command below into the terminal and press enter

    1. Processing &

    2. Processing should open up again and you are ready to code

    3. NOTE: You will need to keep the terminal open in the background to continue running Processing