How to cleanly launch a GUI app via the Terminal?












71















Some GUI apps launch cleanly via the Terminal command line, but some don't, and they cause the Terminal to wait for the app to terminate. Even then, some don't "release" the command line.



The mysterious ampersand & suffix seems to cause the terminal to put the process into the background (but I'm not sure what happens there).



Is there a way to launch an app via the Terminal so that there is no "hang on" effect, just like launching something via Alt+F2?



I'd like to have the command line available again immediately, without something still in the background and printing in the terminal.










share|improve this question

























  • At the request of htorque, I deleted his answer that you accepted. Please could you pick another answer (you will have to unselect htorque's first - should be lurking at the bottom of the page in red)

    – Oli
    Jun 1 '11 at 12:56






  • 1





    The method to deal with a Program-already-running (as outlined by con-f-use) is good for that situation, but as my primary question was about clean-launching with no terminal clutter, I've accepted screen (mentioned by Oli and RobinJ). I am impressed by its capability; after reading about it and trying it out... It only requires the typing of: screen -d -m gedit (or screen gedit then Ctrl+a d to detach)... and I still have full access to gedit's terminal view (for warning messages etc) at any time via screen -r even if I have closed the original terminal window in the meantime...

    – Peter.O
    Jun 4 '11 at 1:36











  • BTW, some of the things you're attributing to the terminal are actually done by the shell, for example interpreting the & command suffix. This might be helpful for clarification: What is the difference between Terminal, Console, Shell, and Command Line?

    – wjandrea
    Oct 5 '18 at 16:58
















71















Some GUI apps launch cleanly via the Terminal command line, but some don't, and they cause the Terminal to wait for the app to terminate. Even then, some don't "release" the command line.



The mysterious ampersand & suffix seems to cause the terminal to put the process into the background (but I'm not sure what happens there).



Is there a way to launch an app via the Terminal so that there is no "hang on" effect, just like launching something via Alt+F2?



I'd like to have the command line available again immediately, without something still in the background and printing in the terminal.










share|improve this question

























  • At the request of htorque, I deleted his answer that you accepted. Please could you pick another answer (you will have to unselect htorque's first - should be lurking at the bottom of the page in red)

    – Oli
    Jun 1 '11 at 12:56






  • 1





    The method to deal with a Program-already-running (as outlined by con-f-use) is good for that situation, but as my primary question was about clean-launching with no terminal clutter, I've accepted screen (mentioned by Oli and RobinJ). I am impressed by its capability; after reading about it and trying it out... It only requires the typing of: screen -d -m gedit (or screen gedit then Ctrl+a d to detach)... and I still have full access to gedit's terminal view (for warning messages etc) at any time via screen -r even if I have closed the original terminal window in the meantime...

    – Peter.O
    Jun 4 '11 at 1:36











  • BTW, some of the things you're attributing to the terminal are actually done by the shell, for example interpreting the & command suffix. This might be helpful for clarification: What is the difference between Terminal, Console, Shell, and Command Line?

    – wjandrea
    Oct 5 '18 at 16:58














71












71








71


56






Some GUI apps launch cleanly via the Terminal command line, but some don't, and they cause the Terminal to wait for the app to terminate. Even then, some don't "release" the command line.



The mysterious ampersand & suffix seems to cause the terminal to put the process into the background (but I'm not sure what happens there).



Is there a way to launch an app via the Terminal so that there is no "hang on" effect, just like launching something via Alt+F2?



I'd like to have the command line available again immediately, without something still in the background and printing in the terminal.










share|improve this question
















Some GUI apps launch cleanly via the Terminal command line, but some don't, and they cause the Terminal to wait for the app to terminate. Even then, some don't "release" the command line.



The mysterious ampersand & suffix seems to cause the terminal to put the process into the background (but I'm not sure what happens there).



Is there a way to launch an app via the Terminal so that there is no "hang on" effect, just like launching something via Alt+F2?



I'd like to have the command line available again immediately, without something still in the background and printing in the terminal.







command-line gui






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited Oct 5 '18 at 2:54









wjandrea

8,50742260




8,50742260










asked Oct 31 '10 at 10:50









Peter.OPeter.O

11k2697151




11k2697151













  • At the request of htorque, I deleted his answer that you accepted. Please could you pick another answer (you will have to unselect htorque's first - should be lurking at the bottom of the page in red)

    – Oli
    Jun 1 '11 at 12:56






  • 1





    The method to deal with a Program-already-running (as outlined by con-f-use) is good for that situation, but as my primary question was about clean-launching with no terminal clutter, I've accepted screen (mentioned by Oli and RobinJ). I am impressed by its capability; after reading about it and trying it out... It only requires the typing of: screen -d -m gedit (or screen gedit then Ctrl+a d to detach)... and I still have full access to gedit's terminal view (for warning messages etc) at any time via screen -r even if I have closed the original terminal window in the meantime...

    – Peter.O
    Jun 4 '11 at 1:36











  • BTW, some of the things you're attributing to the terminal are actually done by the shell, for example interpreting the & command suffix. This might be helpful for clarification: What is the difference between Terminal, Console, Shell, and Command Line?

    – wjandrea
    Oct 5 '18 at 16:58



















  • At the request of htorque, I deleted his answer that you accepted. Please could you pick another answer (you will have to unselect htorque's first - should be lurking at the bottom of the page in red)

    – Oli
    Jun 1 '11 at 12:56






  • 1





    The method to deal with a Program-already-running (as outlined by con-f-use) is good for that situation, but as my primary question was about clean-launching with no terminal clutter, I've accepted screen (mentioned by Oli and RobinJ). I am impressed by its capability; after reading about it and trying it out... It only requires the typing of: screen -d -m gedit (or screen gedit then Ctrl+a d to detach)... and I still have full access to gedit's terminal view (for warning messages etc) at any time via screen -r even if I have closed the original terminal window in the meantime...

    – Peter.O
    Jun 4 '11 at 1:36











  • BTW, some of the things you're attributing to the terminal are actually done by the shell, for example interpreting the & command suffix. This might be helpful for clarification: What is the difference between Terminal, Console, Shell, and Command Line?

    – wjandrea
    Oct 5 '18 at 16:58

















At the request of htorque, I deleted his answer that you accepted. Please could you pick another answer (you will have to unselect htorque's first - should be lurking at the bottom of the page in red)

– Oli
Jun 1 '11 at 12:56





At the request of htorque, I deleted his answer that you accepted. Please could you pick another answer (you will have to unselect htorque's first - should be lurking at the bottom of the page in red)

– Oli
Jun 1 '11 at 12:56




1




1





The method to deal with a Program-already-running (as outlined by con-f-use) is good for that situation, but as my primary question was about clean-launching with no terminal clutter, I've accepted screen (mentioned by Oli and RobinJ). I am impressed by its capability; after reading about it and trying it out... It only requires the typing of: screen -d -m gedit (or screen gedit then Ctrl+a d to detach)... and I still have full access to gedit's terminal view (for warning messages etc) at any time via screen -r even if I have closed the original terminal window in the meantime...

– Peter.O
Jun 4 '11 at 1:36





The method to deal with a Program-already-running (as outlined by con-f-use) is good for that situation, but as my primary question was about clean-launching with no terminal clutter, I've accepted screen (mentioned by Oli and RobinJ). I am impressed by its capability; after reading about it and trying it out... It only requires the typing of: screen -d -m gedit (or screen gedit then Ctrl+a d to detach)... and I still have full access to gedit's terminal view (for warning messages etc) at any time via screen -r even if I have closed the original terminal window in the meantime...

– Peter.O
Jun 4 '11 at 1:36













BTW, some of the things you're attributing to the terminal are actually done by the shell, for example interpreting the & command suffix. This might be helpful for clarification: What is the difference between Terminal, Console, Shell, and Command Line?

– wjandrea
Oct 5 '18 at 16:58





BTW, some of the things you're attributing to the terminal are actually done by the shell, for example interpreting the & command suffix. This might be helpful for clarification: What is the difference between Terminal, Console, Shell, and Command Line?

– wjandrea
Oct 5 '18 at 16:58










11 Answers
11






active

oldest

votes


















17














In gedit's case, I just keep a copy open all the time. As long as you have an existing copy running, launching gedit calls from the terminal and then closing the terminal won't kill gedit.



For other things, what other people have said would work too. I'm a fan of nohup... But if you need a terminal you can detach but then re-attach to, you want to look at screen.




  1. Run it in a terminal and then run something that keeps pushing output. I use the Django development server but irssi or even watch uptime would be good examples.

  2. Kill the terminal and start a new one.

  3. Run screen -r and BOOM, you're back in.


screen is a lot bigger than that and you can combine it with byobu for a better terminal experience. Read around.






share|improve this answer
























  • This is the first real insight I've had as to what screen does/can do... thanks for the terminal tip...

    – Peter.O
    Jun 4 '11 at 1:30











  • screen is no longer available, but tmux can replace screen. (tmux to start a new tmux session, ctrl+b, then press d to deatach, and tmux attach to reattach)

    – Gman Smith
    Apr 2 '16 at 13:25





















81














Suppose gedit is the program you want to run detached (aka. "disowned", "disentangled", "decoupled"). There are different ways depending on what you want to do exactly:



Program already running



Disown:



disown -h is the way to go if you want to do that with an already running program (i.e. if you forgot to nohup it). You first have to stop it using Ctrl+Z. Then you can put in in the brackground using bg [jobId] (e.g. bg 1). You get a list of running jobs with their jobId using jobs. After that you can decouple it from terminal using disown -h %[jobId]. Example terminal session:



$ gedit 
^Z
[1]+ Stopped gedit
$ jobs
[1]+ Stopped gedit
$ bg 1
[1]+ gedit &
$ disown -h %1
$ exit


Program not started yet



nohup



nohup is not always present on all machines. If you know you want to decouple beforehand you would use:



nohup gedit &


Maybe you will want to redirect the shell output as well and your program a pseudo input source, so: nohup ./myprogram > foo.out 2> bar.err < /dev/null &. You would want to redirect the output to either not be annoyed by it or to use it later. The null-input can help to prevent hickups in ssh an such.



Subshell:



You can achieve a similar effect by



$ (geany >/dev/null 2>&1 &)


The brackets open a new subshell to run gedit in. The >/dev/null 2>&1 redirects the shell output to nowhere (suppressing the output). And the & at the end puts the process in the background.



Terminal multiplexing



Also terminal multiplexing using screen or byobu. You basically run the program in a terminal of its own. I can really recommend byobu for other reasons too. Below is a list of boybu-shortcuts that might come in handy for your first steps:



Useful:





  • F2 Create a new window


  • F3 Move to the next window


  • F4 Move to the previous window


  • F6 Detach from the session and logout


  • Shift-F6 Detach from the session, but do not logout


  • F7 Enter scrollback/search mode


  • Ctrl-F5 Reconnect any SSH/GPG sockets or agents


Less useful:





  • Shift-F2 Split the screen horizontally


  • Ctrl-F2 Split the screen vertically


  • Shift-F3 Move focus to the next split


  • Shift-F4 Move focus to the previous split


  • Shift-F5 Collapse all splits


  • F5 Refresh all status notifications


  • F8 Rename the current window


  • F9 Launch the Byobu Configuration Menu


  • F12 GNU Screen's Escape Key


  • Alt-Pageup Scroll back through this window's history


  • Alt-Pagedown Scroll forward through this window's history


  • Ctrl-a-! Toggle all of Byobu's keybindings on or off


The 'at' daemon and others



at is a nice useful little tool to run a command at a scheduled time. It can be 'misused' to detach a command from the shell:



echo './myprogram myoption1 myoption2' | at now


Also you can look into setsid and start-stop-daemon, but the other methods should suffice.






share|improve this answer


























  • Tip: if there's just one job, the job ID is optional, e.g. instead of bg %1 you can just type bg.

    – MasterMastic
    Mar 15 '16 at 12:51



















25















The mysterious ampersand "&" suffix, seems to cause the terminal to put the process into the background... (but I'm not sure what happens there).




It does, and is often what you want. If you forget to use &, you can suspend the program with ctrl-z then place it in the background with the bg command — and continue to use that shell.



The process' stdin, stdout, and stderr are still connected to the terminal; you can redirect those from/to /dev/null or any other file (e.g. save an output log somewhere), as desired:



some-program </dev/null &>/dev/null &
# &>file is bash for 1>file 2>&1


You can see the process in jobs, bring it back to the foreground (fg command), and send it signals (kill command).



Some graphical programs will detach from the terminal; if that's the case, when you run the command "normally" you'll notice it starts the graphical program and "exits".





Here's a short script, you can place it in ~/bin, which I named runbg:



#!/bin/bash
[ $# -eq 0 ] && { # $# is number of args
echo "$(basename $0): missing command" >&2
exit 1
}
prog="$(which "$1")" # see below
[ -z "$prog" ] && {
echo "$(basename $0): unknown command: $1" >&2
exit 1
}
shift # remove $1, now $prog, from args
tty -s && exec </dev/null # if stdin is a terminal, redirect from null
tty -s <&1 && exec >/dev/null # if stdout is a terminal, redirect to null
tty -s <&2 && exec 2>&1 # stderr to stdout (which might not be null)
"$prog" "$@" & # $@ is all args


I look up the program ($prog) before redirecting so errors in locating it can be reported. Run it as "runbg your-command args..."; you can still redirect stdout/err to a file if you need to save output somewhere.



Except for the redirections and error handling, this is equivalent to htorque's answer.






share|improve this answer


























  • Okay, thanks... It seems that ctrl-z (suspend) gives me access to the command line again, but blanks out the GUI until I issue bg which seems to un-suspend it. (makes sense)... Is there another command by which I can detach the GUI... Aha! I see now what you mean by sighals (kill command)... (interesting things these signals).. I used a code snippet to make dd progressively output it stats.. and it used kill + a SIGNAL... Is there a specific SIGNAL to detach a "job"?

    – Peter.O
    Oct 31 '10 at 12:41











  • I just noticed your comment to Rick's answer... I tried disown jobs -p gedit`` and it seemd to remove the job.... (but I got system messages in the Terminal when I manually closed gedit... but I think I've got a screwed-up Terminal at the moment... too much experimenting :(

    – Peter.O
    Oct 31 '10 at 12:51













  • @fred: Jobs are managed by the shell, so no signal can control that. You may find it works best to start several shells — several GUI terminals allow tabs and you can use screen or tmux.

    – Roger Pate
    Oct 31 '10 at 12:52






  • 2





    @fred: better don't run jobs -p command if you have multiple instances of one command running in the background at a time. you can use jobs to find the right job id and then do jobs -p <job-id> to get the job's PID. Personally I find the version with the subshell a lot easier. ;-)

    – htorque
    Oct 31 '10 at 13:22






  • 2





    @htorque, fred: You can run disown without parameters to have bash disown the last job: gedit & disown

    – Roger Pate
    Oct 31 '10 at 13:32



















20














Use nohup




nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals
ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background
after its parent process terminates. See the manpage




For example:



nohup gedit something





share|improve this answer





















  • 2





    What is nohup? Please elaborate.

    – Oxwivi
    May 31 '11 at 12:15






  • 3





    nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background after its parent process terminates. See the manpage

    – Florian Diesch
    May 31 '11 at 12:23











  • Actually I think my answer is incorrect here. On further thought, nohup should be used in this scenario.

    – boehj
    May 31 '11 at 12:26






  • 2





    When an interactive shell receive a SIGHUP signal, can send (or not, depending on settings) a SIGHUP signal to all of its childs. This can happen (or not, again) when a terminal is closed. A child not ready to handle such a signal will execute the default action, i.e. exit. The nohup application (and the disown bash builtin) do not allow the signal to reach the application.

    – enzotib
    May 31 '11 at 12:33






  • 2





    One thing to be careful of is that nohup creates a file in the current directory called nohup.out. See the man page for more details. I prefer disown for this reason, and for the fact that disown works after you launch gedit.

    – Flimm
    May 31 '11 at 14:17



















18














To start an application and detach it from the launched terminal use &!.



firefox &!





share|improve this answer



















  • 6





    Good to know, but that seems to be zsh-only. In bash you'd have to manually run disown <pid-of-command> after starting the command in the background.

    – htorque
    Oct 31 '10 at 12:29











  • Interesting... I'm going to look into zsh, but as a Linux newbie, I'll stick with bash for now... Thanks

    – Peter.O
    Nov 1 '10 at 2:55











  • what does the exclamation mark do ?

    – nutty about natty
    Jan 13 '13 at 17:30






  • 1





    The ! will break the application process from the terminal process so that you can close the terminal without the application that was launched from closing. It seems to be a zsh thing, but handy.

    – Rick
    Jan 14 '13 at 14:21











  • But this worked in bash too @htorque .... So I guess it's not a problem.

    – Jasser
    Mar 22 '16 at 9:16



















4














Open the terminal, type screen, type the command you want to run, close the terminal. The program should keep on running in the GNU Screen session.






share|improve this answer


























  • What exactly is GNU Screen?

    – Oxwivi
    May 31 '11 at 15:11











  • If I get the idea correctly, it's a kind of window manager for the command line. It allows you to run more than one program at once in a command line interface session.

    – RobinJ
    May 31 '11 at 15:14











  • Byobu?

    – Oxwivi
    May 31 '11 at 15:38











  • Something like that, only Byobu is easier to use. If I am npot mistaken, Byobu is just an easier interface for GNU Screen.

    – RobinJ
    May 31 '11 at 15:39





















1














This worked for me:



$ (nohup gedit 2>/dev/null &)





share|improve this answer































    0














    As a lot of people figured, nohup is the thing to consider.
    But nohup stills remains open on the terminal and displays the program activity on the terminal which is irritating. You can just close the terminal after that to avoid so.
    I found out a very simple workaround which I use.



    nohup gedit & exit


    And that's it. It opens gedit and closes the terminal when gedit starts up. As gedit is not associated with the terminal now, it stays active.






    share|improve this answer































      0














      This works even inside a script (Like aliases, the '&' trailer is not normally allowed in scripts because they are not interactive):



      bash -i >/dev/null 2>&1 <<<'nohup gedit &'





      share|improve this answer































        0














        This worked for me:



        $ (some-program &) &>/dev/null

        # Examples:
        $ (gedit &) &>/dev/null
        $ (google-chrome &) &>/dev/null





        share|improve this answer

































          0














          I'm using Ubuntu Bash with VcXsrv and I installed a few GUI progs - gvim, Synaptic, xfe all worked ok, so I tried LXDE desktop, works ok.
          Use startlxde to launch it.



          So I now have full Linux environment with access to the "c" drive, unlike Lubuntu in VirtualBox.






          share|improve this answer








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            11 Answers
            11






            active

            oldest

            votes








            11 Answers
            11






            active

            oldest

            votes









            active

            oldest

            votes






            active

            oldest

            votes









            17














            In gedit's case, I just keep a copy open all the time. As long as you have an existing copy running, launching gedit calls from the terminal and then closing the terminal won't kill gedit.



            For other things, what other people have said would work too. I'm a fan of nohup... But if you need a terminal you can detach but then re-attach to, you want to look at screen.




            1. Run it in a terminal and then run something that keeps pushing output. I use the Django development server but irssi or even watch uptime would be good examples.

            2. Kill the terminal and start a new one.

            3. Run screen -r and BOOM, you're back in.


            screen is a lot bigger than that and you can combine it with byobu for a better terminal experience. Read around.






            share|improve this answer
























            • This is the first real insight I've had as to what screen does/can do... thanks for the terminal tip...

              – Peter.O
              Jun 4 '11 at 1:30











            • screen is no longer available, but tmux can replace screen. (tmux to start a new tmux session, ctrl+b, then press d to deatach, and tmux attach to reattach)

              – Gman Smith
              Apr 2 '16 at 13:25


















            17














            In gedit's case, I just keep a copy open all the time. As long as you have an existing copy running, launching gedit calls from the terminal and then closing the terminal won't kill gedit.



            For other things, what other people have said would work too. I'm a fan of nohup... But if you need a terminal you can detach but then re-attach to, you want to look at screen.




            1. Run it in a terminal and then run something that keeps pushing output. I use the Django development server but irssi or even watch uptime would be good examples.

            2. Kill the terminal and start a new one.

            3. Run screen -r and BOOM, you're back in.


            screen is a lot bigger than that and you can combine it with byobu for a better terminal experience. Read around.






            share|improve this answer
























            • This is the first real insight I've had as to what screen does/can do... thanks for the terminal tip...

              – Peter.O
              Jun 4 '11 at 1:30











            • screen is no longer available, but tmux can replace screen. (tmux to start a new tmux session, ctrl+b, then press d to deatach, and tmux attach to reattach)

              – Gman Smith
              Apr 2 '16 at 13:25
















            17












            17








            17







            In gedit's case, I just keep a copy open all the time. As long as you have an existing copy running, launching gedit calls from the terminal and then closing the terminal won't kill gedit.



            For other things, what other people have said would work too. I'm a fan of nohup... But if you need a terminal you can detach but then re-attach to, you want to look at screen.




            1. Run it in a terminal and then run something that keeps pushing output. I use the Django development server but irssi or even watch uptime would be good examples.

            2. Kill the terminal and start a new one.

            3. Run screen -r and BOOM, you're back in.


            screen is a lot bigger than that and you can combine it with byobu for a better terminal experience. Read around.






            share|improve this answer













            In gedit's case, I just keep a copy open all the time. As long as you have an existing copy running, launching gedit calls from the terminal and then closing the terminal won't kill gedit.



            For other things, what other people have said would work too. I'm a fan of nohup... But if you need a terminal you can detach but then re-attach to, you want to look at screen.




            1. Run it in a terminal and then run something that keeps pushing output. I use the Django development server but irssi or even watch uptime would be good examples.

            2. Kill the terminal and start a new one.

            3. Run screen -r and BOOM, you're back in.


            screen is a lot bigger than that and you can combine it with byobu for a better terminal experience. Read around.







            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered May 31 '11 at 12:25









            OliOli

            221k86558762




            221k86558762













            • This is the first real insight I've had as to what screen does/can do... thanks for the terminal tip...

              – Peter.O
              Jun 4 '11 at 1:30











            • screen is no longer available, but tmux can replace screen. (tmux to start a new tmux session, ctrl+b, then press d to deatach, and tmux attach to reattach)

              – Gman Smith
              Apr 2 '16 at 13:25





















            • This is the first real insight I've had as to what screen does/can do... thanks for the terminal tip...

              – Peter.O
              Jun 4 '11 at 1:30











            • screen is no longer available, but tmux can replace screen. (tmux to start a new tmux session, ctrl+b, then press d to deatach, and tmux attach to reattach)

              – Gman Smith
              Apr 2 '16 at 13:25



















            This is the first real insight I've had as to what screen does/can do... thanks for the terminal tip...

            – Peter.O
            Jun 4 '11 at 1:30





            This is the first real insight I've had as to what screen does/can do... thanks for the terminal tip...

            – Peter.O
            Jun 4 '11 at 1:30













            screen is no longer available, but tmux can replace screen. (tmux to start a new tmux session, ctrl+b, then press d to deatach, and tmux attach to reattach)

            – Gman Smith
            Apr 2 '16 at 13:25







            screen is no longer available, but tmux can replace screen. (tmux to start a new tmux session, ctrl+b, then press d to deatach, and tmux attach to reattach)

            – Gman Smith
            Apr 2 '16 at 13:25















            81














            Suppose gedit is the program you want to run detached (aka. "disowned", "disentangled", "decoupled"). There are different ways depending on what you want to do exactly:



            Program already running



            Disown:



            disown -h is the way to go if you want to do that with an already running program (i.e. if you forgot to nohup it). You first have to stop it using Ctrl+Z. Then you can put in in the brackground using bg [jobId] (e.g. bg 1). You get a list of running jobs with their jobId using jobs. After that you can decouple it from terminal using disown -h %[jobId]. Example terminal session:



            $ gedit 
            ^Z
            [1]+ Stopped gedit
            $ jobs
            [1]+ Stopped gedit
            $ bg 1
            [1]+ gedit &
            $ disown -h %1
            $ exit


            Program not started yet



            nohup



            nohup is not always present on all machines. If you know you want to decouple beforehand you would use:



            nohup gedit &


            Maybe you will want to redirect the shell output as well and your program a pseudo input source, so: nohup ./myprogram > foo.out 2> bar.err < /dev/null &. You would want to redirect the output to either not be annoyed by it or to use it later. The null-input can help to prevent hickups in ssh an such.



            Subshell:



            You can achieve a similar effect by



            $ (geany >/dev/null 2>&1 &)


            The brackets open a new subshell to run gedit in. The >/dev/null 2>&1 redirects the shell output to nowhere (suppressing the output). And the & at the end puts the process in the background.



            Terminal multiplexing



            Also terminal multiplexing using screen or byobu. You basically run the program in a terminal of its own. I can really recommend byobu for other reasons too. Below is a list of boybu-shortcuts that might come in handy for your first steps:



            Useful:





            • F2 Create a new window


            • F3 Move to the next window


            • F4 Move to the previous window


            • F6 Detach from the session and logout


            • Shift-F6 Detach from the session, but do not logout


            • F7 Enter scrollback/search mode


            • Ctrl-F5 Reconnect any SSH/GPG sockets or agents


            Less useful:





            • Shift-F2 Split the screen horizontally


            • Ctrl-F2 Split the screen vertically


            • Shift-F3 Move focus to the next split


            • Shift-F4 Move focus to the previous split


            • Shift-F5 Collapse all splits


            • F5 Refresh all status notifications


            • F8 Rename the current window


            • F9 Launch the Byobu Configuration Menu


            • F12 GNU Screen's Escape Key


            • Alt-Pageup Scroll back through this window's history


            • Alt-Pagedown Scroll forward through this window's history


            • Ctrl-a-! Toggle all of Byobu's keybindings on or off


            The 'at' daemon and others



            at is a nice useful little tool to run a command at a scheduled time. It can be 'misused' to detach a command from the shell:



            echo './myprogram myoption1 myoption2' | at now


            Also you can look into setsid and start-stop-daemon, but the other methods should suffice.






            share|improve this answer


























            • Tip: if there's just one job, the job ID is optional, e.g. instead of bg %1 you can just type bg.

              – MasterMastic
              Mar 15 '16 at 12:51
















            81














            Suppose gedit is the program you want to run detached (aka. "disowned", "disentangled", "decoupled"). There are different ways depending on what you want to do exactly:



            Program already running



            Disown:



            disown -h is the way to go if you want to do that with an already running program (i.e. if you forgot to nohup it). You first have to stop it using Ctrl+Z. Then you can put in in the brackground using bg [jobId] (e.g. bg 1). You get a list of running jobs with their jobId using jobs. After that you can decouple it from terminal using disown -h %[jobId]. Example terminal session:



            $ gedit 
            ^Z
            [1]+ Stopped gedit
            $ jobs
            [1]+ Stopped gedit
            $ bg 1
            [1]+ gedit &
            $ disown -h %1
            $ exit


            Program not started yet



            nohup



            nohup is not always present on all machines. If you know you want to decouple beforehand you would use:



            nohup gedit &


            Maybe you will want to redirect the shell output as well and your program a pseudo input source, so: nohup ./myprogram > foo.out 2> bar.err < /dev/null &. You would want to redirect the output to either not be annoyed by it or to use it later. The null-input can help to prevent hickups in ssh an such.



            Subshell:



            You can achieve a similar effect by



            $ (geany >/dev/null 2>&1 &)


            The brackets open a new subshell to run gedit in. The >/dev/null 2>&1 redirects the shell output to nowhere (suppressing the output). And the & at the end puts the process in the background.



            Terminal multiplexing



            Also terminal multiplexing using screen or byobu. You basically run the program in a terminal of its own. I can really recommend byobu for other reasons too. Below is a list of boybu-shortcuts that might come in handy for your first steps:



            Useful:





            • F2 Create a new window


            • F3 Move to the next window


            • F4 Move to the previous window


            • F6 Detach from the session and logout


            • Shift-F6 Detach from the session, but do not logout


            • F7 Enter scrollback/search mode


            • Ctrl-F5 Reconnect any SSH/GPG sockets or agents


            Less useful:





            • Shift-F2 Split the screen horizontally


            • Ctrl-F2 Split the screen vertically


            • Shift-F3 Move focus to the next split


            • Shift-F4 Move focus to the previous split


            • Shift-F5 Collapse all splits


            • F5 Refresh all status notifications


            • F8 Rename the current window


            • F9 Launch the Byobu Configuration Menu


            • F12 GNU Screen's Escape Key


            • Alt-Pageup Scroll back through this window's history


            • Alt-Pagedown Scroll forward through this window's history


            • Ctrl-a-! Toggle all of Byobu's keybindings on or off


            The 'at' daemon and others



            at is a nice useful little tool to run a command at a scheduled time. It can be 'misused' to detach a command from the shell:



            echo './myprogram myoption1 myoption2' | at now


            Also you can look into setsid and start-stop-daemon, but the other methods should suffice.






            share|improve this answer


























            • Tip: if there's just one job, the job ID is optional, e.g. instead of bg %1 you can just type bg.

              – MasterMastic
              Mar 15 '16 at 12:51














            81












            81








            81







            Suppose gedit is the program you want to run detached (aka. "disowned", "disentangled", "decoupled"). There are different ways depending on what you want to do exactly:



            Program already running



            Disown:



            disown -h is the way to go if you want to do that with an already running program (i.e. if you forgot to nohup it). You first have to stop it using Ctrl+Z. Then you can put in in the brackground using bg [jobId] (e.g. bg 1). You get a list of running jobs with their jobId using jobs. After that you can decouple it from terminal using disown -h %[jobId]. Example terminal session:



            $ gedit 
            ^Z
            [1]+ Stopped gedit
            $ jobs
            [1]+ Stopped gedit
            $ bg 1
            [1]+ gedit &
            $ disown -h %1
            $ exit


            Program not started yet



            nohup



            nohup is not always present on all machines. If you know you want to decouple beforehand you would use:



            nohup gedit &


            Maybe you will want to redirect the shell output as well and your program a pseudo input source, so: nohup ./myprogram > foo.out 2> bar.err < /dev/null &. You would want to redirect the output to either not be annoyed by it or to use it later. The null-input can help to prevent hickups in ssh an such.



            Subshell:



            You can achieve a similar effect by



            $ (geany >/dev/null 2>&1 &)


            The brackets open a new subshell to run gedit in. The >/dev/null 2>&1 redirects the shell output to nowhere (suppressing the output). And the & at the end puts the process in the background.



            Terminal multiplexing



            Also terminal multiplexing using screen or byobu. You basically run the program in a terminal of its own. I can really recommend byobu for other reasons too. Below is a list of boybu-shortcuts that might come in handy for your first steps:



            Useful:





            • F2 Create a new window


            • F3 Move to the next window


            • F4 Move to the previous window


            • F6 Detach from the session and logout


            • Shift-F6 Detach from the session, but do not logout


            • F7 Enter scrollback/search mode


            • Ctrl-F5 Reconnect any SSH/GPG sockets or agents


            Less useful:





            • Shift-F2 Split the screen horizontally


            • Ctrl-F2 Split the screen vertically


            • Shift-F3 Move focus to the next split


            • Shift-F4 Move focus to the previous split


            • Shift-F5 Collapse all splits


            • F5 Refresh all status notifications


            • F8 Rename the current window


            • F9 Launch the Byobu Configuration Menu


            • F12 GNU Screen's Escape Key


            • Alt-Pageup Scroll back through this window's history


            • Alt-Pagedown Scroll forward through this window's history


            • Ctrl-a-! Toggle all of Byobu's keybindings on or off


            The 'at' daemon and others



            at is a nice useful little tool to run a command at a scheduled time. It can be 'misused' to detach a command from the shell:



            echo './myprogram myoption1 myoption2' | at now


            Also you can look into setsid and start-stop-daemon, but the other methods should suffice.






            share|improve this answer















            Suppose gedit is the program you want to run detached (aka. "disowned", "disentangled", "decoupled"). There are different ways depending on what you want to do exactly:



            Program already running



            Disown:



            disown -h is the way to go if you want to do that with an already running program (i.e. if you forgot to nohup it). You first have to stop it using Ctrl+Z. Then you can put in in the brackground using bg [jobId] (e.g. bg 1). You get a list of running jobs with their jobId using jobs. After that you can decouple it from terminal using disown -h %[jobId]. Example terminal session:



            $ gedit 
            ^Z
            [1]+ Stopped gedit
            $ jobs
            [1]+ Stopped gedit
            $ bg 1
            [1]+ gedit &
            $ disown -h %1
            $ exit


            Program not started yet



            nohup



            nohup is not always present on all machines. If you know you want to decouple beforehand you would use:



            nohup gedit &


            Maybe you will want to redirect the shell output as well and your program a pseudo input source, so: nohup ./myprogram > foo.out 2> bar.err < /dev/null &. You would want to redirect the output to either not be annoyed by it or to use it later. The null-input can help to prevent hickups in ssh an such.



            Subshell:



            You can achieve a similar effect by



            $ (geany >/dev/null 2>&1 &)


            The brackets open a new subshell to run gedit in. The >/dev/null 2>&1 redirects the shell output to nowhere (suppressing the output). And the & at the end puts the process in the background.



            Terminal multiplexing



            Also terminal multiplexing using screen or byobu. You basically run the program in a terminal of its own. I can really recommend byobu for other reasons too. Below is a list of boybu-shortcuts that might come in handy for your first steps:



            Useful:





            • F2 Create a new window


            • F3 Move to the next window


            • F4 Move to the previous window


            • F6 Detach from the session and logout


            • Shift-F6 Detach from the session, but do not logout


            • F7 Enter scrollback/search mode


            • Ctrl-F5 Reconnect any SSH/GPG sockets or agents


            Less useful:





            • Shift-F2 Split the screen horizontally


            • Ctrl-F2 Split the screen vertically


            • Shift-F3 Move focus to the next split


            • Shift-F4 Move focus to the previous split


            • Shift-F5 Collapse all splits


            • F5 Refresh all status notifications


            • F8 Rename the current window


            • F9 Launch the Byobu Configuration Menu


            • F12 GNU Screen's Escape Key


            • Alt-Pageup Scroll back through this window's history


            • Alt-Pagedown Scroll forward through this window's history


            • Ctrl-a-! Toggle all of Byobu's keybindings on or off


            The 'at' daemon and others



            at is a nice useful little tool to run a command at a scheduled time. It can be 'misused' to detach a command from the shell:



            echo './myprogram myoption1 myoption2' | at now


            Also you can look into setsid and start-stop-daemon, but the other methods should suffice.







            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Oct 5 '18 at 2:45









            wjandrea

            8,50742260




            8,50742260










            answered May 31 '11 at 12:28









            con-f-usecon-f-use

            12.8k1774136




            12.8k1774136













            • Tip: if there's just one job, the job ID is optional, e.g. instead of bg %1 you can just type bg.

              – MasterMastic
              Mar 15 '16 at 12:51



















            • Tip: if there's just one job, the job ID is optional, e.g. instead of bg %1 you can just type bg.

              – MasterMastic
              Mar 15 '16 at 12:51

















            Tip: if there's just one job, the job ID is optional, e.g. instead of bg %1 you can just type bg.

            – MasterMastic
            Mar 15 '16 at 12:51





            Tip: if there's just one job, the job ID is optional, e.g. instead of bg %1 you can just type bg.

            – MasterMastic
            Mar 15 '16 at 12:51











            25















            The mysterious ampersand "&" suffix, seems to cause the terminal to put the process into the background... (but I'm not sure what happens there).




            It does, and is often what you want. If you forget to use &, you can suspend the program with ctrl-z then place it in the background with the bg command — and continue to use that shell.



            The process' stdin, stdout, and stderr are still connected to the terminal; you can redirect those from/to /dev/null or any other file (e.g. save an output log somewhere), as desired:



            some-program </dev/null &>/dev/null &
            # &>file is bash for 1>file 2>&1


            You can see the process in jobs, bring it back to the foreground (fg command), and send it signals (kill command).



            Some graphical programs will detach from the terminal; if that's the case, when you run the command "normally" you'll notice it starts the graphical program and "exits".





            Here's a short script, you can place it in ~/bin, which I named runbg:



            #!/bin/bash
            [ $# -eq 0 ] && { # $# is number of args
            echo "$(basename $0): missing command" >&2
            exit 1
            }
            prog="$(which "$1")" # see below
            [ -z "$prog" ] && {
            echo "$(basename $0): unknown command: $1" >&2
            exit 1
            }
            shift # remove $1, now $prog, from args
            tty -s && exec </dev/null # if stdin is a terminal, redirect from null
            tty -s <&1 && exec >/dev/null # if stdout is a terminal, redirect to null
            tty -s <&2 && exec 2>&1 # stderr to stdout (which might not be null)
            "$prog" "$@" & # $@ is all args


            I look up the program ($prog) before redirecting so errors in locating it can be reported. Run it as "runbg your-command args..."; you can still redirect stdout/err to a file if you need to save output somewhere.



            Except for the redirections and error handling, this is equivalent to htorque's answer.






            share|improve this answer


























            • Okay, thanks... It seems that ctrl-z (suspend) gives me access to the command line again, but blanks out the GUI until I issue bg which seems to un-suspend it. (makes sense)... Is there another command by which I can detach the GUI... Aha! I see now what you mean by sighals (kill command)... (interesting things these signals).. I used a code snippet to make dd progressively output it stats.. and it used kill + a SIGNAL... Is there a specific SIGNAL to detach a "job"?

              – Peter.O
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:41











            • I just noticed your comment to Rick's answer... I tried disown jobs -p gedit`` and it seemd to remove the job.... (but I got system messages in the Terminal when I manually closed gedit... but I think I've got a screwed-up Terminal at the moment... too much experimenting :(

              – Peter.O
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:51













            • @fred: Jobs are managed by the shell, so no signal can control that. You may find it works best to start several shells — several GUI terminals allow tabs and you can use screen or tmux.

              – Roger Pate
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:52






            • 2





              @fred: better don't run jobs -p command if you have multiple instances of one command running in the background at a time. you can use jobs to find the right job id and then do jobs -p <job-id> to get the job's PID. Personally I find the version with the subshell a lot easier. ;-)

              – htorque
              Oct 31 '10 at 13:22






            • 2





              @htorque, fred: You can run disown without parameters to have bash disown the last job: gedit & disown

              – Roger Pate
              Oct 31 '10 at 13:32
















            25















            The mysterious ampersand "&" suffix, seems to cause the terminal to put the process into the background... (but I'm not sure what happens there).




            It does, and is often what you want. If you forget to use &, you can suspend the program with ctrl-z then place it in the background with the bg command — and continue to use that shell.



            The process' stdin, stdout, and stderr are still connected to the terminal; you can redirect those from/to /dev/null or any other file (e.g. save an output log somewhere), as desired:



            some-program </dev/null &>/dev/null &
            # &>file is bash for 1>file 2>&1


            You can see the process in jobs, bring it back to the foreground (fg command), and send it signals (kill command).



            Some graphical programs will detach from the terminal; if that's the case, when you run the command "normally" you'll notice it starts the graphical program and "exits".





            Here's a short script, you can place it in ~/bin, which I named runbg:



            #!/bin/bash
            [ $# -eq 0 ] && { # $# is number of args
            echo "$(basename $0): missing command" >&2
            exit 1
            }
            prog="$(which "$1")" # see below
            [ -z "$prog" ] && {
            echo "$(basename $0): unknown command: $1" >&2
            exit 1
            }
            shift # remove $1, now $prog, from args
            tty -s && exec </dev/null # if stdin is a terminal, redirect from null
            tty -s <&1 && exec >/dev/null # if stdout is a terminal, redirect to null
            tty -s <&2 && exec 2>&1 # stderr to stdout (which might not be null)
            "$prog" "$@" & # $@ is all args


            I look up the program ($prog) before redirecting so errors in locating it can be reported. Run it as "runbg your-command args..."; you can still redirect stdout/err to a file if you need to save output somewhere.



            Except for the redirections and error handling, this is equivalent to htorque's answer.






            share|improve this answer


























            • Okay, thanks... It seems that ctrl-z (suspend) gives me access to the command line again, but blanks out the GUI until I issue bg which seems to un-suspend it. (makes sense)... Is there another command by which I can detach the GUI... Aha! I see now what you mean by sighals (kill command)... (interesting things these signals).. I used a code snippet to make dd progressively output it stats.. and it used kill + a SIGNAL... Is there a specific SIGNAL to detach a "job"?

              – Peter.O
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:41











            • I just noticed your comment to Rick's answer... I tried disown jobs -p gedit`` and it seemd to remove the job.... (but I got system messages in the Terminal when I manually closed gedit... but I think I've got a screwed-up Terminal at the moment... too much experimenting :(

              – Peter.O
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:51













            • @fred: Jobs are managed by the shell, so no signal can control that. You may find it works best to start several shells — several GUI terminals allow tabs and you can use screen or tmux.

              – Roger Pate
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:52






            • 2





              @fred: better don't run jobs -p command if you have multiple instances of one command running in the background at a time. you can use jobs to find the right job id and then do jobs -p <job-id> to get the job's PID. Personally I find the version with the subshell a lot easier. ;-)

              – htorque
              Oct 31 '10 at 13:22






            • 2





              @htorque, fred: You can run disown without parameters to have bash disown the last job: gedit & disown

              – Roger Pate
              Oct 31 '10 at 13:32














            25












            25








            25








            The mysterious ampersand "&" suffix, seems to cause the terminal to put the process into the background... (but I'm not sure what happens there).




            It does, and is often what you want. If you forget to use &, you can suspend the program with ctrl-z then place it in the background with the bg command — and continue to use that shell.



            The process' stdin, stdout, and stderr are still connected to the terminal; you can redirect those from/to /dev/null or any other file (e.g. save an output log somewhere), as desired:



            some-program </dev/null &>/dev/null &
            # &>file is bash for 1>file 2>&1


            You can see the process in jobs, bring it back to the foreground (fg command), and send it signals (kill command).



            Some graphical programs will detach from the terminal; if that's the case, when you run the command "normally" you'll notice it starts the graphical program and "exits".





            Here's a short script, you can place it in ~/bin, which I named runbg:



            #!/bin/bash
            [ $# -eq 0 ] && { # $# is number of args
            echo "$(basename $0): missing command" >&2
            exit 1
            }
            prog="$(which "$1")" # see below
            [ -z "$prog" ] && {
            echo "$(basename $0): unknown command: $1" >&2
            exit 1
            }
            shift # remove $1, now $prog, from args
            tty -s && exec </dev/null # if stdin is a terminal, redirect from null
            tty -s <&1 && exec >/dev/null # if stdout is a terminal, redirect to null
            tty -s <&2 && exec 2>&1 # stderr to stdout (which might not be null)
            "$prog" "$@" & # $@ is all args


            I look up the program ($prog) before redirecting so errors in locating it can be reported. Run it as "runbg your-command args..."; you can still redirect stdout/err to a file if you need to save output somewhere.



            Except for the redirections and error handling, this is equivalent to htorque's answer.






            share|improve this answer
















            The mysterious ampersand "&" suffix, seems to cause the terminal to put the process into the background... (but I'm not sure what happens there).




            It does, and is often what you want. If you forget to use &, you can suspend the program with ctrl-z then place it in the background with the bg command — and continue to use that shell.



            The process' stdin, stdout, and stderr are still connected to the terminal; you can redirect those from/to /dev/null or any other file (e.g. save an output log somewhere), as desired:



            some-program </dev/null &>/dev/null &
            # &>file is bash for 1>file 2>&1


            You can see the process in jobs, bring it back to the foreground (fg command), and send it signals (kill command).



            Some graphical programs will detach from the terminal; if that's the case, when you run the command "normally" you'll notice it starts the graphical program and "exits".





            Here's a short script, you can place it in ~/bin, which I named runbg:



            #!/bin/bash
            [ $# -eq 0 ] && { # $# is number of args
            echo "$(basename $0): missing command" >&2
            exit 1
            }
            prog="$(which "$1")" # see below
            [ -z "$prog" ] && {
            echo "$(basename $0): unknown command: $1" >&2
            exit 1
            }
            shift # remove $1, now $prog, from args
            tty -s && exec </dev/null # if stdin is a terminal, redirect from null
            tty -s <&1 && exec >/dev/null # if stdout is a terminal, redirect to null
            tty -s <&2 && exec 2>&1 # stderr to stdout (which might not be null)
            "$prog" "$@" & # $@ is all args


            I look up the program ($prog) before redirecting so errors in locating it can be reported. Run it as "runbg your-command args..."; you can still redirect stdout/err to a file if you need to save output somewhere.



            Except for the redirections and error handling, this is equivalent to htorque's answer.







            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23









            Community

            1




            1










            answered Oct 31 '10 at 11:25







            Roger Pate




















            • Okay, thanks... It seems that ctrl-z (suspend) gives me access to the command line again, but blanks out the GUI until I issue bg which seems to un-suspend it. (makes sense)... Is there another command by which I can detach the GUI... Aha! I see now what you mean by sighals (kill command)... (interesting things these signals).. I used a code snippet to make dd progressively output it stats.. and it used kill + a SIGNAL... Is there a specific SIGNAL to detach a "job"?

              – Peter.O
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:41











            • I just noticed your comment to Rick's answer... I tried disown jobs -p gedit`` and it seemd to remove the job.... (but I got system messages in the Terminal when I manually closed gedit... but I think I've got a screwed-up Terminal at the moment... too much experimenting :(

              – Peter.O
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:51













            • @fred: Jobs are managed by the shell, so no signal can control that. You may find it works best to start several shells — several GUI terminals allow tabs and you can use screen or tmux.

              – Roger Pate
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:52






            • 2





              @fred: better don't run jobs -p command if you have multiple instances of one command running in the background at a time. you can use jobs to find the right job id and then do jobs -p <job-id> to get the job's PID. Personally I find the version with the subshell a lot easier. ;-)

              – htorque
              Oct 31 '10 at 13:22






            • 2





              @htorque, fred: You can run disown without parameters to have bash disown the last job: gedit & disown

              – Roger Pate
              Oct 31 '10 at 13:32



















            • Okay, thanks... It seems that ctrl-z (suspend) gives me access to the command line again, but blanks out the GUI until I issue bg which seems to un-suspend it. (makes sense)... Is there another command by which I can detach the GUI... Aha! I see now what you mean by sighals (kill command)... (interesting things these signals).. I used a code snippet to make dd progressively output it stats.. and it used kill + a SIGNAL... Is there a specific SIGNAL to detach a "job"?

              – Peter.O
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:41











            • I just noticed your comment to Rick's answer... I tried disown jobs -p gedit`` and it seemd to remove the job.... (but I got system messages in the Terminal when I manually closed gedit... but I think I've got a screwed-up Terminal at the moment... too much experimenting :(

              – Peter.O
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:51













            • @fred: Jobs are managed by the shell, so no signal can control that. You may find it works best to start several shells — several GUI terminals allow tabs and you can use screen or tmux.

              – Roger Pate
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:52






            • 2





              @fred: better don't run jobs -p command if you have multiple instances of one command running in the background at a time. you can use jobs to find the right job id and then do jobs -p <job-id> to get the job's PID. Personally I find the version with the subshell a lot easier. ;-)

              – htorque
              Oct 31 '10 at 13:22






            • 2





              @htorque, fred: You can run disown without parameters to have bash disown the last job: gedit & disown

              – Roger Pate
              Oct 31 '10 at 13:32

















            Okay, thanks... It seems that ctrl-z (suspend) gives me access to the command line again, but blanks out the GUI until I issue bg which seems to un-suspend it. (makes sense)... Is there another command by which I can detach the GUI... Aha! I see now what you mean by sighals (kill command)... (interesting things these signals).. I used a code snippet to make dd progressively output it stats.. and it used kill + a SIGNAL... Is there a specific SIGNAL to detach a "job"?

            – Peter.O
            Oct 31 '10 at 12:41





            Okay, thanks... It seems that ctrl-z (suspend) gives me access to the command line again, but blanks out the GUI until I issue bg which seems to un-suspend it. (makes sense)... Is there another command by which I can detach the GUI... Aha! I see now what you mean by sighals (kill command)... (interesting things these signals).. I used a code snippet to make dd progressively output it stats.. and it used kill + a SIGNAL... Is there a specific SIGNAL to detach a "job"?

            – Peter.O
            Oct 31 '10 at 12:41













            I just noticed your comment to Rick's answer... I tried disown jobs -p gedit`` and it seemd to remove the job.... (but I got system messages in the Terminal when I manually closed gedit... but I think I've got a screwed-up Terminal at the moment... too much experimenting :(

            – Peter.O
            Oct 31 '10 at 12:51







            I just noticed your comment to Rick's answer... I tried disown jobs -p gedit`` and it seemd to remove the job.... (but I got system messages in the Terminal when I manually closed gedit... but I think I've got a screwed-up Terminal at the moment... too much experimenting :(

            – Peter.O
            Oct 31 '10 at 12:51















            @fred: Jobs are managed by the shell, so no signal can control that. You may find it works best to start several shells — several GUI terminals allow tabs and you can use screen or tmux.

            – Roger Pate
            Oct 31 '10 at 12:52





            @fred: Jobs are managed by the shell, so no signal can control that. You may find it works best to start several shells — several GUI terminals allow tabs and you can use screen or tmux.

            – Roger Pate
            Oct 31 '10 at 12:52




            2




            2





            @fred: better don't run jobs -p command if you have multiple instances of one command running in the background at a time. you can use jobs to find the right job id and then do jobs -p <job-id> to get the job's PID. Personally I find the version with the subshell a lot easier. ;-)

            – htorque
            Oct 31 '10 at 13:22





            @fred: better don't run jobs -p command if you have multiple instances of one command running in the background at a time. you can use jobs to find the right job id and then do jobs -p <job-id> to get the job's PID. Personally I find the version with the subshell a lot easier. ;-)

            – htorque
            Oct 31 '10 at 13:22




            2




            2





            @htorque, fred: You can run disown without parameters to have bash disown the last job: gedit & disown

            – Roger Pate
            Oct 31 '10 at 13:32





            @htorque, fred: You can run disown without parameters to have bash disown the last job: gedit & disown

            – Roger Pate
            Oct 31 '10 at 13:32











            20














            Use nohup




            nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals
            ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background
            after its parent process terminates. See the manpage




            For example:



            nohup gedit something





            share|improve this answer





















            • 2





              What is nohup? Please elaborate.

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 12:15






            • 3





              nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background after its parent process terminates. See the manpage

              – Florian Diesch
              May 31 '11 at 12:23











            • Actually I think my answer is incorrect here. On further thought, nohup should be used in this scenario.

              – boehj
              May 31 '11 at 12:26






            • 2





              When an interactive shell receive a SIGHUP signal, can send (or not, depending on settings) a SIGHUP signal to all of its childs. This can happen (or not, again) when a terminal is closed. A child not ready to handle such a signal will execute the default action, i.e. exit. The nohup application (and the disown bash builtin) do not allow the signal to reach the application.

              – enzotib
              May 31 '11 at 12:33






            • 2





              One thing to be careful of is that nohup creates a file in the current directory called nohup.out. See the man page for more details. I prefer disown for this reason, and for the fact that disown works after you launch gedit.

              – Flimm
              May 31 '11 at 14:17
















            20














            Use nohup




            nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals
            ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background
            after its parent process terminates. See the manpage




            For example:



            nohup gedit something





            share|improve this answer





















            • 2





              What is nohup? Please elaborate.

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 12:15






            • 3





              nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background after its parent process terminates. See the manpage

              – Florian Diesch
              May 31 '11 at 12:23











            • Actually I think my answer is incorrect here. On further thought, nohup should be used in this scenario.

              – boehj
              May 31 '11 at 12:26






            • 2





              When an interactive shell receive a SIGHUP signal, can send (or not, depending on settings) a SIGHUP signal to all of its childs. This can happen (or not, again) when a terminal is closed. A child not ready to handle such a signal will execute the default action, i.e. exit. The nohup application (and the disown bash builtin) do not allow the signal to reach the application.

              – enzotib
              May 31 '11 at 12:33






            • 2





              One thing to be careful of is that nohup creates a file in the current directory called nohup.out. See the man page for more details. I prefer disown for this reason, and for the fact that disown works after you launch gedit.

              – Flimm
              May 31 '11 at 14:17














            20












            20








            20







            Use nohup




            nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals
            ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background
            after its parent process terminates. See the manpage




            For example:



            nohup gedit something





            share|improve this answer















            Use nohup




            nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals
            ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background
            after its parent process terminates. See the manpage




            For example:



            nohup gedit something






            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Aug 10 '12 at 1:13









            Mateo

            7,30384871




            7,30384871










            answered May 31 '11 at 12:10









            Florian DieschFlorian Diesch

            64.7k16161179




            64.7k16161179








            • 2





              What is nohup? Please elaborate.

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 12:15






            • 3





              nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background after its parent process terminates. See the manpage

              – Florian Diesch
              May 31 '11 at 12:23











            • Actually I think my answer is incorrect here. On further thought, nohup should be used in this scenario.

              – boehj
              May 31 '11 at 12:26






            • 2





              When an interactive shell receive a SIGHUP signal, can send (or not, depending on settings) a SIGHUP signal to all of its childs. This can happen (or not, again) when a terminal is closed. A child not ready to handle such a signal will execute the default action, i.e. exit. The nohup application (and the disown bash builtin) do not allow the signal to reach the application.

              – enzotib
              May 31 '11 at 12:33






            • 2





              One thing to be careful of is that nohup creates a file in the current directory called nohup.out. See the man page for more details. I prefer disown for this reason, and for the fact that disown works after you launch gedit.

              – Flimm
              May 31 '11 at 14:17














            • 2





              What is nohup? Please elaborate.

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 12:15






            • 3





              nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background after its parent process terminates. See the manpage

              – Florian Diesch
              May 31 '11 at 12:23











            • Actually I think my answer is incorrect here. On further thought, nohup should be used in this scenario.

              – boehj
              May 31 '11 at 12:26






            • 2





              When an interactive shell receive a SIGHUP signal, can send (or not, depending on settings) a SIGHUP signal to all of its childs. This can happen (or not, again) when a terminal is closed. A child not ready to handle such a signal will execute the default action, i.e. exit. The nohup application (and the disown bash builtin) do not allow the signal to reach the application.

              – enzotib
              May 31 '11 at 12:33






            • 2





              One thing to be careful of is that nohup creates a file in the current directory called nohup.out. See the man page for more details. I prefer disown for this reason, and for the fact that disown works after you launch gedit.

              – Flimm
              May 31 '11 at 14:17








            2




            2





            What is nohup? Please elaborate.

            – Oxwivi
            May 31 '11 at 12:15





            What is nohup? Please elaborate.

            – Oxwivi
            May 31 '11 at 12:15




            3




            3





            nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background after its parent process terminates. See the manpage

            – Florian Diesch
            May 31 '11 at 12:23





            nohup is a program that runs a given command with hangup signals ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background after its parent process terminates. See the manpage

            – Florian Diesch
            May 31 '11 at 12:23













            Actually I think my answer is incorrect here. On further thought, nohup should be used in this scenario.

            – boehj
            May 31 '11 at 12:26





            Actually I think my answer is incorrect here. On further thought, nohup should be used in this scenario.

            – boehj
            May 31 '11 at 12:26




            2




            2





            When an interactive shell receive a SIGHUP signal, can send (or not, depending on settings) a SIGHUP signal to all of its childs. This can happen (or not, again) when a terminal is closed. A child not ready to handle such a signal will execute the default action, i.e. exit. The nohup application (and the disown bash builtin) do not allow the signal to reach the application.

            – enzotib
            May 31 '11 at 12:33





            When an interactive shell receive a SIGHUP signal, can send (or not, depending on settings) a SIGHUP signal to all of its childs. This can happen (or not, again) when a terminal is closed. A child not ready to handle such a signal will execute the default action, i.e. exit. The nohup application (and the disown bash builtin) do not allow the signal to reach the application.

            – enzotib
            May 31 '11 at 12:33




            2




            2





            One thing to be careful of is that nohup creates a file in the current directory called nohup.out. See the man page for more details. I prefer disown for this reason, and for the fact that disown works after you launch gedit.

            – Flimm
            May 31 '11 at 14:17





            One thing to be careful of is that nohup creates a file in the current directory called nohup.out. See the man page for more details. I prefer disown for this reason, and for the fact that disown works after you launch gedit.

            – Flimm
            May 31 '11 at 14:17











            18














            To start an application and detach it from the launched terminal use &!.



            firefox &!





            share|improve this answer



















            • 6





              Good to know, but that seems to be zsh-only. In bash you'd have to manually run disown <pid-of-command> after starting the command in the background.

              – htorque
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:29











            • Interesting... I'm going to look into zsh, but as a Linux newbie, I'll stick with bash for now... Thanks

              – Peter.O
              Nov 1 '10 at 2:55











            • what does the exclamation mark do ?

              – nutty about natty
              Jan 13 '13 at 17:30






            • 1





              The ! will break the application process from the terminal process so that you can close the terminal without the application that was launched from closing. It seems to be a zsh thing, but handy.

              – Rick
              Jan 14 '13 at 14:21











            • But this worked in bash too @htorque .... So I guess it's not a problem.

              – Jasser
              Mar 22 '16 at 9:16
















            18














            To start an application and detach it from the launched terminal use &!.



            firefox &!





            share|improve this answer



















            • 6





              Good to know, but that seems to be zsh-only. In bash you'd have to manually run disown <pid-of-command> after starting the command in the background.

              – htorque
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:29











            • Interesting... I'm going to look into zsh, but as a Linux newbie, I'll stick with bash for now... Thanks

              – Peter.O
              Nov 1 '10 at 2:55











            • what does the exclamation mark do ?

              – nutty about natty
              Jan 13 '13 at 17:30






            • 1





              The ! will break the application process from the terminal process so that you can close the terminal without the application that was launched from closing. It seems to be a zsh thing, but handy.

              – Rick
              Jan 14 '13 at 14:21











            • But this worked in bash too @htorque .... So I guess it's not a problem.

              – Jasser
              Mar 22 '16 at 9:16














            18












            18








            18







            To start an application and detach it from the launched terminal use &!.



            firefox &!





            share|improve this answer













            To start an application and detach it from the launched terminal use &!.



            firefox &!






            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered Oct 31 '10 at 12:20









            RickRick

            2,66932026




            2,66932026








            • 6





              Good to know, but that seems to be zsh-only. In bash you'd have to manually run disown <pid-of-command> after starting the command in the background.

              – htorque
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:29











            • Interesting... I'm going to look into zsh, but as a Linux newbie, I'll stick with bash for now... Thanks

              – Peter.O
              Nov 1 '10 at 2:55











            • what does the exclamation mark do ?

              – nutty about natty
              Jan 13 '13 at 17:30






            • 1





              The ! will break the application process from the terminal process so that you can close the terminal without the application that was launched from closing. It seems to be a zsh thing, but handy.

              – Rick
              Jan 14 '13 at 14:21











            • But this worked in bash too @htorque .... So I guess it's not a problem.

              – Jasser
              Mar 22 '16 at 9:16














            • 6





              Good to know, but that seems to be zsh-only. In bash you'd have to manually run disown <pid-of-command> after starting the command in the background.

              – htorque
              Oct 31 '10 at 12:29











            • Interesting... I'm going to look into zsh, but as a Linux newbie, I'll stick with bash for now... Thanks

              – Peter.O
              Nov 1 '10 at 2:55











            • what does the exclamation mark do ?

              – nutty about natty
              Jan 13 '13 at 17:30






            • 1





              The ! will break the application process from the terminal process so that you can close the terminal without the application that was launched from closing. It seems to be a zsh thing, but handy.

              – Rick
              Jan 14 '13 at 14:21











            • But this worked in bash too @htorque .... So I guess it's not a problem.

              – Jasser
              Mar 22 '16 at 9:16








            6




            6





            Good to know, but that seems to be zsh-only. In bash you'd have to manually run disown <pid-of-command> after starting the command in the background.

            – htorque
            Oct 31 '10 at 12:29





            Good to know, but that seems to be zsh-only. In bash you'd have to manually run disown <pid-of-command> after starting the command in the background.

            – htorque
            Oct 31 '10 at 12:29













            Interesting... I'm going to look into zsh, but as a Linux newbie, I'll stick with bash for now... Thanks

            – Peter.O
            Nov 1 '10 at 2:55





            Interesting... I'm going to look into zsh, but as a Linux newbie, I'll stick with bash for now... Thanks

            – Peter.O
            Nov 1 '10 at 2:55













            what does the exclamation mark do ?

            – nutty about natty
            Jan 13 '13 at 17:30





            what does the exclamation mark do ?

            – nutty about natty
            Jan 13 '13 at 17:30




            1




            1





            The ! will break the application process from the terminal process so that you can close the terminal without the application that was launched from closing. It seems to be a zsh thing, but handy.

            – Rick
            Jan 14 '13 at 14:21





            The ! will break the application process from the terminal process so that you can close the terminal without the application that was launched from closing. It seems to be a zsh thing, but handy.

            – Rick
            Jan 14 '13 at 14:21













            But this worked in bash too @htorque .... So I guess it's not a problem.

            – Jasser
            Mar 22 '16 at 9:16





            But this worked in bash too @htorque .... So I guess it's not a problem.

            – Jasser
            Mar 22 '16 at 9:16











            4














            Open the terminal, type screen, type the command you want to run, close the terminal. The program should keep on running in the GNU Screen session.






            share|improve this answer


























            • What exactly is GNU Screen?

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 15:11











            • If I get the idea correctly, it's a kind of window manager for the command line. It allows you to run more than one program at once in a command line interface session.

              – RobinJ
              May 31 '11 at 15:14











            • Byobu?

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 15:38











            • Something like that, only Byobu is easier to use. If I am npot mistaken, Byobu is just an easier interface for GNU Screen.

              – RobinJ
              May 31 '11 at 15:39


















            4














            Open the terminal, type screen, type the command you want to run, close the terminal. The program should keep on running in the GNU Screen session.






            share|improve this answer


























            • What exactly is GNU Screen?

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 15:11











            • If I get the idea correctly, it's a kind of window manager for the command line. It allows you to run more than one program at once in a command line interface session.

              – RobinJ
              May 31 '11 at 15:14











            • Byobu?

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 15:38











            • Something like that, only Byobu is easier to use. If I am npot mistaken, Byobu is just an easier interface for GNU Screen.

              – RobinJ
              May 31 '11 at 15:39
















            4












            4








            4







            Open the terminal, type screen, type the command you want to run, close the terminal. The program should keep on running in the GNU Screen session.






            share|improve this answer















            Open the terminal, type screen, type the command you want to run, close the terminal. The program should keep on running in the GNU Screen session.







            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited May 31 '11 at 15:10









            enzotib

            63k6132154




            63k6132154










            answered May 31 '11 at 15:00









            RobinJRobinJ

            6,47953964




            6,47953964













            • What exactly is GNU Screen?

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 15:11











            • If I get the idea correctly, it's a kind of window manager for the command line. It allows you to run more than one program at once in a command line interface session.

              – RobinJ
              May 31 '11 at 15:14











            • Byobu?

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 15:38











            • Something like that, only Byobu is easier to use. If I am npot mistaken, Byobu is just an easier interface for GNU Screen.

              – RobinJ
              May 31 '11 at 15:39





















            • What exactly is GNU Screen?

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 15:11











            • If I get the idea correctly, it's a kind of window manager for the command line. It allows you to run more than one program at once in a command line interface session.

              – RobinJ
              May 31 '11 at 15:14











            • Byobu?

              – Oxwivi
              May 31 '11 at 15:38











            • Something like that, only Byobu is easier to use. If I am npot mistaken, Byobu is just an easier interface for GNU Screen.

              – RobinJ
              May 31 '11 at 15:39



















            What exactly is GNU Screen?

            – Oxwivi
            May 31 '11 at 15:11





            What exactly is GNU Screen?

            – Oxwivi
            May 31 '11 at 15:11













            If I get the idea correctly, it's a kind of window manager for the command line. It allows you to run more than one program at once in a command line interface session.

            – RobinJ
            May 31 '11 at 15:14





            If I get the idea correctly, it's a kind of window manager for the command line. It allows you to run more than one program at once in a command line interface session.

            – RobinJ
            May 31 '11 at 15:14













            Byobu?

            – Oxwivi
            May 31 '11 at 15:38





            Byobu?

            – Oxwivi
            May 31 '11 at 15:38













            Something like that, only Byobu is easier to use. If I am npot mistaken, Byobu is just an easier interface for GNU Screen.

            – RobinJ
            May 31 '11 at 15:39







            Something like that, only Byobu is easier to use. If I am npot mistaken, Byobu is just an easier interface for GNU Screen.

            – RobinJ
            May 31 '11 at 15:39













            1














            This worked for me:



            $ (nohup gedit 2>/dev/null &)





            share|improve this answer




























              1














              This worked for me:



              $ (nohup gedit 2>/dev/null &)





              share|improve this answer


























                1












                1








                1







                This worked for me:



                $ (nohup gedit 2>/dev/null &)





                share|improve this answer













                This worked for me:



                $ (nohup gedit 2>/dev/null &)






                share|improve this answer












                share|improve this answer



                share|improve this answer










                answered Dec 30 '12 at 23:20









                wesleycoderwesleycoder

                1312




                1312























                    0














                    As a lot of people figured, nohup is the thing to consider.
                    But nohup stills remains open on the terminal and displays the program activity on the terminal which is irritating. You can just close the terminal after that to avoid so.
                    I found out a very simple workaround which I use.



                    nohup gedit & exit


                    And that's it. It opens gedit and closes the terminal when gedit starts up. As gedit is not associated with the terminal now, it stays active.






                    share|improve this answer




























                      0














                      As a lot of people figured, nohup is the thing to consider.
                      But nohup stills remains open on the terminal and displays the program activity on the terminal which is irritating. You can just close the terminal after that to avoid so.
                      I found out a very simple workaround which I use.



                      nohup gedit & exit


                      And that's it. It opens gedit and closes the terminal when gedit starts up. As gedit is not associated with the terminal now, it stays active.






                      share|improve this answer


























                        0












                        0








                        0







                        As a lot of people figured, nohup is the thing to consider.
                        But nohup stills remains open on the terminal and displays the program activity on the terminal which is irritating. You can just close the terminal after that to avoid so.
                        I found out a very simple workaround which I use.



                        nohup gedit & exit


                        And that's it. It opens gedit and closes the terminal when gedit starts up. As gedit is not associated with the terminal now, it stays active.






                        share|improve this answer













                        As a lot of people figured, nohup is the thing to consider.
                        But nohup stills remains open on the terminal and displays the program activity on the terminal which is irritating. You can just close the terminal after that to avoid so.
                        I found out a very simple workaround which I use.



                        nohup gedit & exit


                        And that's it. It opens gedit and closes the terminal when gedit starts up. As gedit is not associated with the terminal now, it stays active.







                        share|improve this answer












                        share|improve this answer



                        share|improve this answer










                        answered Sep 3 '15 at 17:25









                        Lokesh DevnaniLokesh Devnani

                        11




                        11























                            0














                            This works even inside a script (Like aliases, the '&' trailer is not normally allowed in scripts because they are not interactive):



                            bash -i >/dev/null 2>&1 <<<'nohup gedit &'





                            share|improve this answer




























                              0














                              This works even inside a script (Like aliases, the '&' trailer is not normally allowed in scripts because they are not interactive):



                              bash -i >/dev/null 2>&1 <<<'nohup gedit &'





                              share|improve this answer


























                                0












                                0








                                0







                                This works even inside a script (Like aliases, the '&' trailer is not normally allowed in scripts because they are not interactive):



                                bash -i >/dev/null 2>&1 <<<'nohup gedit &'





                                share|improve this answer













                                This works even inside a script (Like aliases, the '&' trailer is not normally allowed in scripts because they are not interactive):



                                bash -i >/dev/null 2>&1 <<<'nohup gedit &'






                                share|improve this answer












                                share|improve this answer



                                share|improve this answer










                                answered Jan 2 '18 at 19:40









                                SamSam

                                1




                                1























                                    0














                                    This worked for me:



                                    $ (some-program &) &>/dev/null

                                    # Examples:
                                    $ (gedit &) &>/dev/null
                                    $ (google-chrome &) &>/dev/null





                                    share|improve this answer






























                                      0














                                      This worked for me:



                                      $ (some-program &) &>/dev/null

                                      # Examples:
                                      $ (gedit &) &>/dev/null
                                      $ (google-chrome &) &>/dev/null





                                      share|improve this answer




























                                        0












                                        0








                                        0







                                        This worked for me:



                                        $ (some-program &) &>/dev/null

                                        # Examples:
                                        $ (gedit &) &>/dev/null
                                        $ (google-chrome &) &>/dev/null





                                        share|improve this answer















                                        This worked for me:



                                        $ (some-program &) &>/dev/null

                                        # Examples:
                                        $ (gedit &) &>/dev/null
                                        $ (google-chrome &) &>/dev/null






                                        share|improve this answer














                                        share|improve this answer



                                        share|improve this answer








                                        edited Jun 13 '18 at 8:49

























                                        answered Jun 13 '18 at 8:43









                                        Eyal LevinEyal Levin

                                        33329




                                        33329























                                            0














                                            I'm using Ubuntu Bash with VcXsrv and I installed a few GUI progs - gvim, Synaptic, xfe all worked ok, so I tried LXDE desktop, works ok.
                                            Use startlxde to launch it.



                                            So I now have full Linux environment with access to the "c" drive, unlike Lubuntu in VirtualBox.






                                            share|improve this answer








                                            New contributor




                                            James Sutherland is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                            Check out our Code of Conduct.

























                                              0














                                              I'm using Ubuntu Bash with VcXsrv and I installed a few GUI progs - gvim, Synaptic, xfe all worked ok, so I tried LXDE desktop, works ok.
                                              Use startlxde to launch it.



                                              So I now have full Linux environment with access to the "c" drive, unlike Lubuntu in VirtualBox.






                                              share|improve this answer








                                              New contributor




                                              James Sutherland is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                              Check out our Code of Conduct.























                                                0












                                                0








                                                0







                                                I'm using Ubuntu Bash with VcXsrv and I installed a few GUI progs - gvim, Synaptic, xfe all worked ok, so I tried LXDE desktop, works ok.
                                                Use startlxde to launch it.



                                                So I now have full Linux environment with access to the "c" drive, unlike Lubuntu in VirtualBox.






                                                share|improve this answer








                                                New contributor




                                                James Sutherland is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                                Check out our Code of Conduct.










                                                I'm using Ubuntu Bash with VcXsrv and I installed a few GUI progs - gvim, Synaptic, xfe all worked ok, so I tried LXDE desktop, works ok.
                                                Use startlxde to launch it.



                                                So I now have full Linux environment with access to the "c" drive, unlike Lubuntu in VirtualBox.







                                                share|improve this answer








                                                New contributor




                                                James Sutherland is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                                Check out our Code of Conduct.









                                                share|improve this answer



                                                share|improve this answer






                                                New contributor




                                                James Sutherland is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                                Check out our Code of Conduct.









                                                answered 2 hours ago









                                                James SutherlandJames Sutherland

                                                1




                                                1




                                                New contributor




                                                James Sutherland is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                                Check out our Code of Conduct.





                                                New contributor





                                                James Sutherland is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                                Check out our Code of Conduct.






                                                James Sutherland is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                                Check out our Code of Conduct.






























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