Stage 4 · Lesson 5 of 8

Foreground, background and jobs

The shell can run a program in the , where it holds your terminal until it ends, or in the background, where you can keep typing. These are called jobs. Add & to the end of a command to start it in the background.

Press Ctrl+Z to pause the program in front of you. Then type bg to let it carry on in the background, or fg to bring it back to the front. jobs lists them.

Background jobs still stop when you close the terminal, unless you use nohup or a tool such as , covered in the server stage. This is handy for running a while you keep working.

Common trapstarting several dev servers in the background, forgetting them, and then fighting " already in use".

A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it

Resources for this stage

Start with· follow one of these

BookFree
The Linux Command Line
William Shotts · Beginner
Its chapters on permissions and processes are the clearest free explanation of this stage
GuideFree
The Linux Command Line for Beginners (Ubuntu)
Canonical · Beginner
Includes a short, careful section on the superuser and when to use sudo

Practise

OverTheWire: Bandit
Later levels need permissions, setuid binaries and processes to progress

Keep handy

nvm (Node Version Manager)
The official README for installing nvm and switching Node versions per project
ArchWiki
Deep pages on users, groups, permissions and system maintenance for any distribution

Also worth your time

roadmap.sh: LinuxGo deeper
See the users, permissions and process management branches of the Linux map