This question already has an answer here: Running programs in the background from terminal 4 answers How do I run a program in the background of a shell, with the ability to close the shell while leaving the program running which should not disturb the window i am working on? Lets say my UI is having problems or for some reason, I need to boot up a program from the terminal window. The program should not disturb my window in which i am working on but it should be opened from the command line and i should be able to get access to it using the normal shortcut ALT+TAB. Even the command line should exit after running the command I tried this .... "gedit file-name & exit" this is working fine but the gedit file is opening in the foreground (let i be working on some application like mozilla. After running the command ..... gedit file is coming upwards and i have to flip to mozilla again but the command should just open the gedit file not shifting to gedit application from the mozilla window)