On occasion, a user may want to initiate a process in the terminal but then close the terminal without killing that process.
For example, open a terminal with ctrl+alt+t and run
nautilus
Now, close the terminal: It will give a prompt suggesting that will end the Nautilus process, too. Closing the terminal out will also close nautilus.
Now run
nautilus &
Nautilus will launch and the terminal will drop back to prompt. Now enter in
disown
You can now close out the terminal while leaving the initiated process running.
I have found this immensely useful for running custom widgets, background items, even window managers or for Testing Purposes.
If ever you have been annoyed at having to leave the terminal open while running a program, here is your quick-fire solution.
