Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#1

Post by superasn » Tue, May 19, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal
github.com

Re: Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#2

Post by obviyus » Tue, May 19, 2020, 12:54 AM UTC

Looks great! This coupled with tldr would prove incredibly useful for some of my friends trying to get used to Linux.

Re: Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#3

Post by superasn » Tue, May 19, 2020, 12:57 AM UTC

Hi HN,

Made this quick little utility to help you when you forgot to do something in linux terminal, like:

    - the arguments for extracting a bz2 file
    - the command to reattach to a screen 
    - the latest ppa for a software program
    - to something as simple as which linux distro / version i'm running

The concept is simple. Just download the script and now anytime from your terminal you can write

    $ howdoi see my linux version
    
    $ howdoi upgrade php

    $ howdoi unzip a file

And it will search the internet and try to give you the most relevant search result so that you can do whatever it is you're doing without being interrupted

Re: Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#4

Post by superasn » Tue, May 19, 2020, 12:58 AM UTC

obviyus wrote: post #2

Looks great! This coupled with tldr would prove incredibly useful for some of my friends trying to get used to Linux.

Thank you so much. It was inspired by cheat.sh which does something similar too

Re: Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#5

Post by jfim » Tue, May 19, 2020, 2:37 AM UTC

There's another 'howdoi' already, FYI: https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi

Re: Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#6

Post by superasn » Tue, May 19, 2020, 2:50 AM UTC

jfim wrote: post #5

There's another 'howdoi' already, FYI: https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi

Oh no.. you're right! I will rename mine.

Edit: Though that looks for programming related questions and mine is for more general linux related questions.

Re: Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#7

Post by findjashua » Tue, May 19, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

On OSX, the "StackExchange Search" workflow for Alfred is also fantastic for doing this.

Firstly, you can bind it to a hotkey, so don't have to type "how do i" before the query

Secondly, it updates the list of results as you type. Then you can select the one that seems to be the most relevant to open it in the browser (with a hotkey)

https://github.com/deanishe/alfred-stackoverflow

Re: Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#8

Post by johnklos » Tue, May 19, 2020, 3:11 AM UTC

No source, huh? And all the world's an x86, I suppose. Why would anyone want to put a closed binary on their systems?

Re: Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#9

Post by superasn » Tue, May 19, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

johnklos wrote: post #8

No source, huh? And all the world's an x86, I suppose. Why would anyone want to put a closed binary on their systems?

Not sure what you mean. Its a simple script. You can view the source on github.

Re: Show HN: Get help on any Linux command by typing 'howdoi –' in your terminal

#10

Post by vengefulduck » Tue, May 19, 2020, 3:16 AM UTC

johnklos wrote: post #8

No source, huh? And all the world's an x86, I suppose. Why would anyone want to put a closed binary on their systems?

It looks like a shell script have you actually opened the file?