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Whenever I type the name of an application to open it, the application opens, but after opening it, the terminal seems to be busy with a process so that it doesn't give me the prompt for the next command (I mean following the $ sign). Then I can't type any more command in the terminal and I have to exit it pressing the close button (at the top left) which in turn kills the process. Please note that I am using precise pangolin & this problem seems to be pertaining to all the processes.

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up vote 3 down vote accepted

try adding a '&' (no quotes) after the name of the app

eg: firefox &

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Thanks a lot. It worked. But what's the significance of the ampersand? What exactly the terminal expects after opening the application unless I enter &? –  Barman Aug 10 '12 at 6:47
Not exactly sure but if you ever want to launch an app without all the other text you can use alt + f2 –  alme1304 Aug 10 '12 at 11:37
@TrailRider That is not correct. An & at the end of a command makes it run as a background job. & and && are different operators. Furthermore, command1 && command2 will not always run command2. The right hand side of an && expression only runs if the left hand side of the expression terminated indicating success. –  Eliah Kagan Aug 11 '12 at 21:56
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