[9fans] Backgrounding a task

[Chris McGee <newton688@gmail.com>]

Hi All,

When I'm using Unix, there's a workflow that I use for long running commands that I'm hoping to find the equivalent in the Plan 9 way of doing things.

I will occasionally run a command, realize that it will take a long time to complete. I don't want to kill it. I'll just Ctrl-Z and bg to put it into the background using the shell. It's almost as if I had run it with '&' in the first place. I can then run other commands in the same working directory, environment and shell history.

Is there an equivalent to this workflow in Plan 9?

I realize that the whole job control system dates back to old single session terminals, which isn't a problem with Rio where you can draw new windows at will. Initially I thought, that you just drag that window to a corner somewhere and let it complete. But, if I draw a new window it won't be in the same working directory, have the same environment and namespace. Maybe there is a way to create a window that inherits these from an existing process?

Chris