Versions earlier than Python 2.4 are not supported.
If you are using Windows then binary builds for Python 2.4 and Python 2.5 are available at
http://pyprocessing.berlios.de
Otherwise, if you have the correct C compiler setup then the source distribution can be installed the usual way:
python setup.py install
It should not be necessary to do any editing of setup.py if you are using Windows, Mac OS X or (a recent) Linux. On other unices it may be necessary to modify the values of the macros dictionary or libraries list. The section to modify reads
macros = dict( # should we include support for posix semaphores? USE_POSIX_SEMAPHORE=have_feature('SC_SEMAPHORES'), # does semaphore support lack sem_timedwait()? NO_SEM_TIMED=0, ) # linux needs librt - other unices may not libraries = ['rt']
Note that if support for posix semaphores has not been compiled in then many of the functions in the processing namespace like Lock(), Queue() or LocalManager() will be available. However, one can still create a manager using manager = processing.Manager() and then do lock = manager.Lock() etc.
To run the test scripts using Python 2.5 do
python -m processing.test
and on Python 2.4 do
python -c "from processing.test import main; main()"
This will run a number of test scripts using both processes and threads.