Perform Terminal Commands Without Opening the Terminal - Linux

Question

Is there anyway, within Linux, to open a terminal or perform a terminal command (such as executing a script) without actually opening the terminal window. What i'd like to do is be able to execute a script from the terminal without the user knowing.

Alternatively is there a shortcut or method to make the terminal window transparent. I know I could create a start up process to run the command, but this would involve opening the terminal window and alerting the user.

Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

If you'd like to run a script periodically, save the script and run it as a cronjob. Executing a cronjob do not require a terminal to be opened.

Answer 2

Depends on when you need start script.

• repeated tasks: write script and use Cron mentioned by @ThreadedLemon (nice set of examples)
• on startup: write script, use chmod +x on script and use init.d (example on StackOverflow)
• on user logon: write script and use ~/.profile (or similar name depends on distro) (info on StackOverFlow)