How can I launch a command from terminal and then close the terminal?

Question

I ran scratch-text-editor in terminal, but now I want to close the terminal without closing scratch.

Is this possible, if so; how?

Answer 1

You can use:

1. nohup

   nohup scratch-text-editor /path/to/file &
   

   Then close terminal with Ctrl+D

   If you want direct in single command: Use exit at the end of the command. like,

   nohup scratch-text-editor /path/to/file & exit
   

2. setsid

   setsid scratch-text-editor /path/to/file ; exit
   

3. disown

   scratch-text-editor /path/to/file & disown ; exit
   

4. All in one command:

   (scratch-text-editor /path/to/file &) ; exit
   

Answer 2

In the future use this command:

scratch-text-editor /file/to/open.txt

for this:

scratch-text-editor /file/to/open.txt &

Note the & on the end there. That will start it as a separate process.

Now to close the terminal, simply hit Ctrl + D.

---

If you forget to use & then you can detach it. First press Ctrl + Z to suspend the program. This can crash some, but it is unlikely.

Then type bg to send it to background, and then press Ctrl + D as above.

As a side note, instead of bg you can use %. This simply brings it back into the terminal.

Answer 3

Simply detach the process from terminal's process to its parent by: command-to-run & disown

Answer 4

This should work with any app opened from the terminal.

Type:

 scratch-text-editor 

After Scratch opens, type:

Ctrl + z

This will halt the process, but not close Scratch.

Next, type:

bg

This will move Scratch's process to the background.

Now, finally type:

disown

That's it.