6.3 Using a text editor with a GUI

The most convenient option is to use a text editor with a graphical user interface (GUI). The standard editor on Gnome systems in gedit:

$ gedit test.sh

However, this only works when the connection allows X11 forwarding. X11 forwarding is referring to a mechanism that enables you to run a remote application (such as gedit), but forward the output display to your local computer. This is automatically the case when using the terminal on a Linux machine. However, when connecting to a remote computer (e.g. a cluster) with ssh, add the argument ssh -X to enable gedit. In some cases, this is not possible, so knowing how to use vim is still very handy.

6.3.1 Running a process in the background

By default, any program launched on the command line will become the main process - our command line is “blocked” and does not accept any further commands. Hence we can continue to use the command line only after we closed the program. To launch a program in the background (as a new process), put a & after the command:

$ gedit test.sh &

Try it out - we can now enter commands on the command line while having the text editor open in the background.