os.startfile() on Linux ?

[lynx]

On Tue, 11 Mar 2003 12:35:51 +0100, Harald Schneider wrote:

> is there a way to call a file with it's corresponding application, like
> os.startfile() on Win32 does ?

the problem is that then you have to know what the "corresponding
application" for some given file is, and on unix, that's a not quite
trivial problem. if you're willing to tie your program to a specific
desktop environment, then KDE and Gnome each have their own ways of
resolving such correspondences, and Gnome at least has reputedly-good
python bindings; but "barebones unix", posix that is, has no such
mechanism.

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