In short, it's due to an open bug in Sun Java. As it is not open sourced, so you can only wait for them to fix it. It's documented in ubuntu launchpad bugslist 1) don’t use sun-java but default-jre instead. This bug is actually a known bug in sun-java. ( bug #325506 ) 2) add export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/jni to your .bashrc, the .deskop file (in /usr/share/desktop), or on the command line before starting arduino 3) add the new package (instructions are above). link