Running terminal commands from python script (Linux)

Question

I am trying to write a python script that does a few things:

Open a terminal, cd's to a directory, and run's a command there.
Open a second terminal, cd's to another directory, and executes a file there.

The execution of step 1 can only be completed after step 2 has been completed. Step 1 and 2 should both be done from a python (or another language) script.

I tries using subprocess.Popen, subprocess.call, os.sytem, but this does not seem to work.

Does anyone have an idea how to do this?

The code I have so far:

import subprocess

terminal1 = subprocess.Popen(["gnome-terminal",'cd ~',"torcs -r ~/quickrace.xml"])
terminal2 = subprocess.Popen(['gnome-terminal','cd ~'])

What do you mean by "does not seem to work"? What happens actually? And yes, please also post the code you've tried. — CristiFati
– CristiFati, Commented Nov 21, 2017 at 12:03
I'm still not sure why you would need a terminal for that. Does the user have to interact somehow with the terminal? — W.Mann
– W.Mann, Commented Nov 21, 2017 at 12:09

Kitero · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-21 13:22:19Z

1

I don't know if it's exactly what you want but try it, replace the $variables by what you want and i think it will run.

#!/bin/bash


xterm -e "pwd ; cd $PATH ; your command ; echo press RETURN to close this window ; read" # delete the echo and the read to don't stop the process and make it run quickly
xterm -e "pwd ; cd $OTHERPATH ; your command ; echo press RETURN to close this window ; read"

And think to install xterm if you don't have. (rpm -i xterm if you have rpm packages)

In python i made this but it's not exactly what you want, but it's a beginning i think.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import os

if __name__ == "__main__":
    os.system('xterm -e "pwd ; cd $PATH ; your command ; echo press RETURN to close this window ; read" &') # delete the echo and the read to don't stop the process and make it run quickly
    input("Press Enter to continue...")
    os.system('xterm -e "pwd ; cd $OTHERPATH ; your command ; echo press RETURN to close this window ; read" &')

edited Nov 21, 2017 at 13:22

answered Nov 21, 2017 at 12:16

Kitero

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3 Comments

guyd Over a year ago

Question was asked for python script

Stefan1993 Over a year ago

Thanks a lot, this works! Now my final question is whether it is possible to run this in a loop. Such that both windows automatically close when the processes are finished and when they are both closed they should start again. Is that possible?

Kitero Over a year ago

It is but it's harder, you can place it in a while (true) with a sleep(x secondes) at the place of the input, but it's not a really good solution.The good solution could be to check the PID (processus ID) of the terms (it's a value which indicate the processus within run the xterm) and when the processus is over you start the next, so a while which contain a while which look the PID of xterm and close xterm when it's over and start a second xterm in a while. I'm at my work and i'm not a big hardcoder python so i can't check it now sorry. But here is my mind.

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