Execute a program from the bash terminal without waiting for program to close

Question

Executing a program in the terminal with a command such as ./theprogram runs the program, but waits until the program closes. This is useful if you want to see the output of the program, but what if you just want to execute the program and keep working in that terminal while the program is running?

Answer 1

You have two basic options. If you've already started the program, hit CTRL-Z to suspend it, then run bg to put that job into the background and let it keep working. If you haven't started the job yet, start it by running ./theprogram & to put it in the background right away.