Linux Newbie Tip: Starting GUI apps from the command line

Under the Linux command line shell, I want to be able to start GUI applications, without keeping the console window dependent on the application. If I simply type the application name, and press Enter, the application will run, but the console window will be unusable until I close the app. Moreover, if I close the console window, the GUI app dies with it.

The solution is to start the application as a background process. This is simply done by putting an ampersand ("&") after the command name like that:

nautilus &

emacs &

xmms &