How to change workspaces using the terminal

**Blackdragon1400** · February 20th, 2009

Hey guys, got a noob question for you. How do you use the terminal to change to a different workspace. I am writing some .sh shell scripts to run some commands I need. The problem is they both run continuously so I would like to have them both open in two different workspaces. Any clue on how to do this???

Thanks

**cconroy** · February 20th, 2009

It sounds like what you really want to do is run them in the background

the following script would print "hi" very quickly...

Code:

longCommand1&
longCommand2&
echo "hi"

the & instructs the shell to run the process in the background and not wait for it to terminate.

**Blackdragon1400** · February 20th, 2009

If I run the process in the background how do I pull it up to see what it is doing ex. my script will be running commands verbosely so I would like to see some of that output

**zhocchao** · February 21st, 2009

you're looking for wmctrl

**Blackdragon1400** · February 21st, 2009

im having some trouble getting wmctrl to work the way a would like it to, it seems to work on a basis of having multiple "Desktops" not so much for workspaces. I dont belive that this program has full support for what I need, I even had problems getting it to maximize a window. Any suggestions?

**Armor Nick** · February 21st, 2009

Try using GNU screen (I think it's installed by default) or just use a tabbed terminal emulator. Heck, you could even use your virtual terminals if you want (Ctl+Alt+F* and replace * with a number from 1 to 6).

**cconroy** · February 21st, 2009

Originally Posted by Blackdragon1400

If I run the process in the background how do I pull it up to see what it is doing ex. my script will be running commands verbosely so I would like to see some of that output

You could redirect the output. e.g.

Code:

chris@serenity:~$ cat blah.sh
sleep 2
echo "hi"
sleep 2
echo "hi again"
exit

Code:

chris@serenity:~$ sh blah.sh>blah.txt &
[2] 31827
chris@serenity:~$ tail -f blah.txt
hi
hi again

Take a look at the TLDP documentation for Bash I/O redirection if you need to do something fancier.

**cubeist** · February 21st, 2009

Actually, if you are using compiz, there is a way to do this... First write your shell scripts so that each separate process opens in a specific terminal (in gnome, you can create terminal profiles with unique names). The command to run a script in a specific terminal would look like this:

Code:

gnome-terminal --window-with-profile=asdf

Then in compiz, use the place plugin to place that window in a specific viewport... then everytime you run your shells, the new terminal windows will automatically be placed where you want them..

hope I explained this ok...good luck