Having trouble running a task in the background
 

I am working from a console prompt only (via ssh) an I tryi to run a program in the background but it doesnt seem to want to go...and when I do finally finagle it there...it runs for about an hour then stops running....if it matters I am running mandrake 8.0 in run level 3..

perhaps I should ask a question....can some one break down the ways to get a program to run/launch into the background

easiest way i know of is just to execute the program from the command line with an & trailing - like this:

user@linux:/runme &