Running Linux terminal commands on Tkinter

Question

I am planning to create a GUI that needs to execute some commands on linux terminal. How can i execute Linux terminal commands on Tkinter GUI buttons?

Answer 1

You'll need a function that runs Linux commands when a button is clicked.

For this, Python's in-built library subprocess is sufficient. The syntax is as follows in order to run a simple ls -l in the terminal:

subprocess.run(["ls", "-l"])

For a sample tkinter program with usage, you'll have to wrap the subprocess.run() in a function. For example:

from tkinter import *
import subprocess

def run():
    subprocess.run(["ls", "-l"])

root = Tk()
Button(root, text="Click to run 'ls -l'", command=run).pack()
root.mainloop()

To learn more about the subprocess module and how to capture output from the terminal: https://docs.python.org/3/library/subprocess.html

Answer 2

To execute the commands, use a python module called subprocess . The code is as following:

import subprocess
test = subprocess.Popen(["ping","-W","2","-c", "1", "192.168.1.70"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
output = test.communicate()[0]
print(output)