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I would like to use the following scenario for my favorite applications under Linux (Ubuntu 10.10) in order to save grabbing the mouse and clicking them:

  1. Open a terminal (Ctrl-Alt-D)
  2. Type my alias for the application (eg: ff for firefox)
  3. Have the application start and the terminal killed immediately, not when I close the application.
  4. Define the dimensions and position of the application using the --geometry parameter from gnome-terminal

For now, I have created the following alias, but it does not behave as described:

alias ff="gnome-terminal --geometry 100x100-0+0 -e 'firefox'; exit"

Instead, it opens a new terminal, kills the first one, and kills the second one upon exiting firefox.

If I try the following instead:

alias ff2="firefox &; exit"

I get the error message:

bash: syntax error near unexpected token `;'

In fact, all these attempts fail:

alias ff="gnome-terminal --geometry 100x100-0+0 -e 'firefox'; exit"
alias ff2="firefox &; exit"
alias ff3="nohup firefox & ; exit"
alias ff4="nohup firefox; exit

How can I obtain the desired behavior?

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  • 2
    Are you aware of the & operator and the nohup command? Have you looked at them yet?
    – S.Lott
    Feb 24, 2011 at 20:18
  • Hi S.Lott. Yes, I know about it. But I did not succeed in obtaining the desired behavior (specifically, killing the terminal) using the '&' operator either. Could it be done that way?
    – Morlock
    Feb 24, 2011 at 20:22

3 Answers 3

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Actually, this is it:

nohup firefox & 2> /dev/null; exit;

If you want to use an alias, simply do:

alias ff='nohup firefox & 2> /dev/null; exit;'

and watch the magic happen when you execute ff

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  • 2
    The combination with the redirection of the output/error channels is key here. +1 Feb 24, 2011 at 20:55
  • Yes, I would never have thought to use the redirection in that case... Thanks karl!
    – Morlock
    Feb 24, 2011 at 20:59
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It's a SuperUser answer, but are you aware of the Alt-F2 shortcut?

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  • Are you sure an alias can't execute multiple commands? Try my answer. Feb 24, 2011 at 20:59
  • Whoops, I should have been quicker to fact-check.
    – Tobu
    Feb 24, 2011 at 21:00
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nohup command arguments & ; exit

Perhaps you might find it more productive to define keyboard shortcuts in your window manager to simply open the various programs of interest?

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  • alias ff3="nohup firefox & ; exit" gives me the same error as for my ff2 attempt. Removing the & does not work either... sorry.
    – Morlock
    Feb 24, 2011 at 20:44
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    My answer is not a usage of the alias command, which is what introduces that problem.
    – Chris Stratton
    Feb 24, 2011 at 20:46

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