The reason I don't like shell script is it will be OS dependant and macros cannot be used.
1. The can be used to abstract OS differences
2. Shell scripts can have parameters, so macros can be used.
Apart from that it will be debugger dependent. By GUI I meant the splitted debugger GUI, the general one for all debuggers which u are trying to split afaik.
The GUI in the project is not common for all debuggers. It has not split at the moment.
What's 'avahi' btw?
Replace it with the real command you've used, it thought mistake
Another idea: Can gdb be adjusted to not wait till the shell command exits somehow?
Ask on the gdb's mailing list or in #gdb @ irc.freenode.net or .org (not 100% sure).