[texhax] latexmk error in gnome-terminal

[jtzzaa11-texhax2 at yahoo.com]

I'm trying to write a script where latexmk will run inside a gnome-terminal.

Using:
gnome-terminal -x 'latexmk f.tex' 

gives a popup window with the error:
"There was an error creating the child process for this terminal"

using:

gnome-terminal -x "ls"
works fine, so the problem seems to be with latexmk running inside the gnome-terminal.

any suggestions?

TIA