[SOLVED] How to open multiple instances of a program in Linux

Issue

Say for example, to open multiple instances of gedit editor I wrote a shell script like this-

gedit&
gedit&
gedit&
gedit&

But after I ran my shell script ./example.sh, I can find only one instance of gedit! I've even used the & operator, so that the shell doesn't wait for one instance to finish. Still I cannot see four instances of gedit.

Also I tried directly from the command prompt. If I just enter gedit& on the command line, it showed 1906 ( this is the PID of the newly created gedit process ), started one new gedit instance and returned to prompt again. When I typed gedit& on the command line, it showed 1909 this time, but no new instance of gedit! And I couldn't find any process with PID 1909 in the System Monitor too. Where did this new process go away?

Is the happening specific to gedit? If so, what is the generic behavior when creating multiple instances of a program?

Solution

It is specific to gedit. You are likely looking for gedit --new-window &.

From man gedit:

--new-window
       Create a new toplevel window in an existing instance of gedit.

Answered By - etuardu