I've had to run those kinds of jobs before and wanted exactly that kind of tool, not being able to find it at the time, I wrote one:

  http://asymmetrical-view.com/personal/code/perl/parallel-jobs.readme

  http://asymmetrical-view.com/personal/code/perl/parallel-jobs

Example 'command file': # specify several downloads to be run in parallel wget http://some.host/software.tar.gz wget http://some.host/database.mdb wget http://some.host/movie-trailer.mpeg wget http://some.host/linux-distrubtion.iso

Run as:

  parllel-jobs --cmdfile=file.cmd --maxjobs=4