This issue is to make whatever changes are necessary to remove the skip from test_subprocess's test_executable() test (currently skipping machines that are neither Windows nor Mac):

http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/ef90c5e482f4/Lib/test/test_subprocess.py#l203

The test currently fails on several Linux buildbots, but the test succeeds on Mac and Windows.  Perhaps this points to a different, underlying issue that needs to be fixed.

Either way, we should be able to test Popen()'s executable argument on Linux machines.  This issue seems closely related to closed issue #7774.

Below is more information from a buildbot about the failure (the AMD64 Ubuntu LTS buildbot):

http://buildbot.python.org/all/builders/AMD64%20Ubuntu%20LTS%203.3/builds/38/steps/test/logs/stdio

FAIL: test_executable (test.test_subprocess.ProcessTestCase)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/python/3.x.langa-ubuntu/build/Lib/test/test_subprocess.py", line 205, in test_executable
    self._assert_python(["doesnotexist", "-c"], executable=sys.executable)
  File "/opt/python/3.x.langa-ubuntu/build/Lib/test/test_subprocess.py", line 201, in _assert_python
    self.assertEqual(47, p.returncode)
AssertionError: 47 != -6

======================================================================
FAIL: test_executable (test.test_subprocess.ProcessTestCaseNoPoll)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/python/3.x.langa-ubuntu/build/Lib/test/test_subprocess.py", line 205, in test_executable
    self._assert_python(["doesnotexist", "-c"], executable=sys.executable)
  File "/opt/python/3.x.langa-ubuntu/build/Lib/test/test_subprocess.py", line 201, in _assert_python
    self.assertEqual(47, p.returncode)
AssertionError: 47 != -6

test_executable (test.test_subprocess.ProcessTestCase) ... Could not find platform independent libraries <prefix>
Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix>
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>]
Fatal Python error: Py_Initialize: Unable to get the locale encoding
ImportError: No module named 'encodings'
FAIL