#!/usr/bin/python # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- import subprocess subprocess.call(['ps', 'aux']) # Just exec. lines = subprocess.check_output(['ls']) # Get output into vari print type(lines) print lines # Popen for handle stds handle = subprocess.Popen("ls", stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, close_fds=True) # True here can be a sec issue. handle.stdout.read()