running a program in background of X using &
 

i read in another post that by typing & at the end of a command that the program will run even after i close the terminal i started it from. so i type 'firefox &' and firefox starts up and everything but if i close the terminal window it closes firefox as well. what gives? i got it to work once but now it just won't. is there some kind of special permission i need to have set or what? TIA

Try using "exit" to close your terminal after issuing "firefox &", assuming you haven't already.