Open a new terminal and source scripts

command-line bash scripts gnome-terminal virtualenv

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According to my experience the command should be:

gnome-terminal --working-directory='/home/<user>/project' -x bash -c "source startProject.sh; exec bash"

Notes:

The path of --working-directory='/home/<user>/project' is enclosed with single quote marks in case it contains some special characters as spaces, etc.
The option -x means: execute - the remainder of the command line inside the terminal.
And our command is bash -c "<commands>". That means we execute a new bash shell, which should run some -c "<commands>".
We have two separated (by semicolon ; == new line) <commands>.
The first command source startProject.sh will source the script file.
The second command exec bash has a meaning - remain open the current gnome-terminal window. There are another possible approaches to do that. In the current case the command exec will replace the current process image with a new process image - in other words it will 'kill' the current process and will execute a new (bash) under the current PID.

Heuyie

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Heuyie over 1 year
I want to write a script to activate a virtual environment and run my server for Django project in a new terminal. My startProject.sh is:
```
#!/bin/bash
source virtualenv/bin/activate
python manage.py runserver
```
And, I can run this script on my current terminal by:
```
source startProject.sh
```
I want to do this in a new terminal opened by a script.
```
#!/bin/bash
gnome-terminal --working-directory=/home/myname/project -x 'source startProject.sh'
```
I tried this too.
```
#!/bin/bash
gnome-terminal --working-directory=/home/myname/project -x '#!/bin/bash\n source startProject.sh'
```
Both do not work. Why? I read other questions but I still did not get it. I am a beginner, so please assume no experience.
- wjandrea over 6 years
  
  Maybe try gnome-terminal --working-directory=/home/myname/project -x './startProject.sh'
- pa4080 over 6 years
  
  @wjandrea, according to this previous question of Heuyie it should be ...'source startProject.sh'.
- pa4080 about 2 years
  
  Does this answer your question? how can I open a extra console and run a program in it with one command?
Heuyie over 6 years

It worked! Thank you for explaining one by one! :)
pa4080 over 6 years

Happy to help, @Heuyie! :)
Heuyie over 6 years

One more question. Is gnome-terminal bash or dash command? Why do not I need to specify a shell to run this command?
pa4080 over 6 years

@Heuyie: In the above solutions we specify a shell, because: (1) source is Shell Builtin Command (find 'source' in the section Bash Builtin Commands), and in other case gnome-terminal will do something wrong; (2) We want to execute a second command to remain the window open.
pa4080 over 6 years

gnome-terminal is a program, executable file that is located within a directory listed in your $PATH envvar, so it is accesible as shell command. See also: How do I modify my $PATH?
Heuyie over 6 years

> it is accesible as shell command I did not know this! I was looking at list of bash/dash commands and could not find it. Thank you again! :)
pa4080 over 6 years

@Heuyie, I remembered for this collection: “Envoriment variable PATH” on Ubuntu.