Start google chrome in the background in Gnome - do not focus on the window

Question

I am running Linux Mint - Debian edition (with Gnome2) on my HTPC with Boxee on top. Boxee is set to start automatically at login in Gnome2 and that works fine, but I am also looking to start Chrome after login - or a Chrome app - somewhere in the background in case I want to do other things besides using Boxee. The problem with this is that Chrome steals the focus from Boxee when it starts.

I know that Chrome has a "-start-maximized" flag, but do you know of any way to make it start minimized, or in the background or just tell it not to steal focus?

Thanks!

Solution

Latest version of Chrome also has a parameter to run in background.

/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --no-startup-window

This works fine for me in Ubuntu 11.10 with Google Chrome 15.0.874.106.

There's an option in Chrome's preferences to do that. In wrench menu, under the hood section, there's "Background Apps, Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed" checkbox.

In Windows I even have a system tray icon when I enable this option, but in Ubuntu I couldn't get one, but still it works in the background (also it starts in every session automatically).

Hope it helps.

Comments

[danakim]

Thanks a lot! This really helps. I did manage to do this with Devil's Pie but it would be a lot nicer to do it without an external program.