for when you wanna run a bunch of commands in serial but each in a different terminal and you don't care what order they run in

mutex.py

import sys, os, subprocess, errno, time

class BadArgsException( Exception ):
   pass

class FileLock:
   def __init__( self, lockfile, delay=1.0 ):
      """ Acquire the lock, if possible. If the lock is in use, it check again
          every `wait` seconds. It does this until it either gets the lock or
          exceeds `timeout` number of seconds, in which case it throws 
          an exception.
      """
      self.is_locked = False
      self.lockfile = lockfile
      self.delay = delay
      while True:
         try:
            self.fd = os.open( self.lockfile, os.O_CREAT | os.O_EXCL | os.O_RDWR )
            break;
         except OSError as e:
            if e.errno != errno.EEXIST:
               raise 
            time.sleep( self.delay )
      self.is_locked = True

   def release( self ):
      if self.is_locked:
         os.close( self.fd )
         os.unlink( self.lockfile )
         self.is_locked = False

   def __del__( self ):
      self.release()

def printUsage():
   print """Usage: mutex <lockfile> [OPTIONS] <command [command-arg1 [command-arg2, [ ... ]]>
   Wait until <lockfile> does not exist, then run the given command.
   The lockfile must be the first argument... the command to run must be the last.
   The -s argument means to unlock the file when the command is blocked waiting for stdin.
   The -k argument means to kill the file when the command is blocked waiting for stdin.
   """

def parseArgs( argv ):
   lockfile = argv[0]

   options = {}
   commandMode = False
   command = []
   for arg in argv[ 1: ]:
      if commandMode:
         command.append( arg )
      elif arg[0] == '-':
         for option in arg[ 1: ]:
            options[ option ] = True
      else:
         command.append( arg )
         commandMode = True

   return lockfile, options, command

def runCmd( lockfile, options, cmd ):
   lock = FileLock( lockfile )
   subprocess.call( ' '.join( cmd ), shell=True )
   lock.release()

def main():
   try:
      lockfile, options, cmd = parseArgs( sys.argv[ 1: ] )
   except Exception:
      printUsage()
      return 1
   runCmd( lockfile, options, cmd )

if __name__ == '__main__':
   main()