Execute command in terminal an don't wait its return
Solution 1:
Use
firefox &
It will create firefox process in background and you can work in terminal
Solution 2:
Firefox 35 on Ubuntu 14.04 detaches itself from the shell, still printing errors though, to eliminate that output, try:
firefox >/dev/null 2>&1 www.google.com &
The>/dev/null
makes firefox's 'stdout' text stream be sent to "nowhere",2>&1
makes 'stderr' be sent to the same place,&
detaches firefox from the shell.
With Bash "job control" of a long running process, e.g. find on /
as in:
find -printf "%p\n" / >$HOME/LIST-OF-FILES.txt
... at any time before it finishes, you can do this:
Hold Ctrl and hit Z
[1]+ Stopped find ...
will be printed and the shell prompt will reappear...
type bg
and press enter to have find continue run in the background.
Note that errors and warnings will still be printed, as in...
find: /run/lightdm: Permission denied
To stop those from appearing, add 2>/dev/null
to the command line.
Another alternative to launch GUI based software is
xdg-open firefox ...
... this is more equal to actually clicking on an icon in your OS.
NOTE: Ubuntu. There are various variants of this for other Linux-variants, and MacOS.
Look up "job control" in http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/abs-guide.html - for more info.
Solution 3:
Ctrl+Z is what you're looking for and then afterwards type bg
Enter
Alternatively (but you'll take a bit of getting used to it) is typing firefox&
instead of firefox
Ctrl+Z bg
Enter