Launching a Script on the Linux Platform
Rhodri James
rhodri at kynesim.co.uk
Tue Nov 12 13:39:38 EST 2019
On 12/11/2019 18:25, Rob Gaddi wrote:
> On 11/12/19 10:06 AM, Wildman wrote:
>> What is the best approach for launching a Python GUI program
>> on a Linux platform. The program will be distributed in .deb
>> format. So the .deb will contain a menu file as well as a
>> .desktop file. The post install script will update the system
>> menu.
>>
>> My question is how should the program be executed? Here are
>> two choices for the "command=" entry in the menu file...
>>
>> command="/path/to/program.py"
>>
>> In this case the hash-bang would have to be included in the
>> program script... #!/usr/bin/env python3
>>
>> The other choice is this...
>>
>> command="python3 /path/to/program.py"
>>
>> (Of course, the Exec command in the .desktop file should match.)
>>
>> Is one method better than the other or does it acutally matter?
>>
>
> I will note that without the shebang (and setting the execute bit), the
> program is only executable from the GUI menu, not the command prompt. I
> personally start even GUI programs far more often from a prompt.
>
> To follow Linux conventions you'd put the shebang, make the file
> executable, and put the executable somewhere on the PATH. I'd stick to
> those conventions barring a particular reason not to.
Wildman is talking about launching his program from a menu, so putting
it on the PATH is unnecessary. It may even be a bad idea, depending on
exactly what he's done :-)
As to the original question, there shouldn't really be much of a
difference. The original idea of the shebang line invoking env, as far
I recall, was that you'd get the "proper" system python3 wherever it had
been put rather than something random and possibly malicious. I guess
that means to go for your first option.
--
Rhodri James *-* Kynesim Ltd
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