Question

I am using bash on Ubuntu. I would like to have a shell script open a program and continue on to the next line of the shell script, even though the program has not terminated.

Answer 1

Adding an & to a command places it in background.

example:

/path/to/foo    
/path/to/bar     # not executed untill foo is done


/path/to/foo &    # in background
/path/to/bar &    # executes as soon as foo is started

Read more about job-control here and here