Commands
&
The & command, used on the command line, forces the specified process to run in the background.
Example: To start a lengthy program running in the background, use
sort_everything &
 | As soon as they are successfully invoked, background processes release control of your terminal to the shell that invoked them. This means that you can continue to work without waiting for a lengthy process to finish. |
^Z
The ^Z command stops the current foreground process.
Example: This command works on any process. For example, say you're running a lengthy sort and you want to check what time it is:
| $> biglongsort | # Start lengthy process |
| ^Z | # Suspend with ... |
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