Is there a way to close cmus without quitting?

Solution 1:

I've written a guide explaining how to use a bash script combined with a rebinding of the q key to have very comfortable detaching/reattaching with cmus, see https://github.com/cmus/cmus/wiki/detachable-cmus

Please tell me if this is good enough, since implementing this in cmus would be a lot of work :-).

Note: For the above solution to work the screen command must be installed: sudo apt-get install screen

Solution 2:

This is how I work with cmus :

I run cmus manually on tty1 (Ctrl+Alt+F1) every time I login to my computer.

I control cmus from my gnome terminal using cmus-remote commands (look at manpage of cmus-remote.

That way you can exit the terminal any time you want and still have cmus running in tty1.