Start Transmission in the background

Run as

transmission --minimized

This will launch it minimised to the notification area. For more information check out the man page

man transmission

For latest Ubuntu use

transmission-gtk --minimized

install this Package: transmission-daemon (and the associated control interface transmission-remote)

$ sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon

So you can start it as a daemon (in the background) and use transmission via browser (transmission-remote)

Ciao.