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

howdoi

Get quick answers to common linux related questions, right inside your terminal by typing "howdoi [your question]".

Screenshot

Examples

Quick answer

$ howdoi extract a bz2 file

  -j, --bzip2
            filter the archive through bzip2
  tar -xvjf enginsxt.tar.bz2
  
  Source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/707861/how-to-extract-tar-bz2

Verbose output

$ howdoi -v add a program to cron

  Put a shell script in one of these folders: /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.hourly, /etc/cron.monthly or /etc/cron.weekly. 
  
  If these are not enough for you, you can add more specific tasks e.g. twice a month or every 5 minutes. Go to the terminal and type:
  
  crontab -e
  
 ...snip
  
  Source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/2368/how-do-i-set-up-a-cron-job

Multiple results

$ howdoi -n 2 attach to a screen

 screen
 screen -S myprogramrunningunderscreen
 screen -ls

There are screens on:
    4964.myprogramrunningunderscreen    (05/31/2013 09:42:29 PM)    (Detached)
    4874.pts-1.creeper  (05/31/2013 09:39:12 PM)    (Detached)

Source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/302662/reattaching-to-an-existing-screen-session

  screen -d -r

Source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/302662/reattaching-to-an-existing-screen-session

Other

$ howdoi upgrade to latest php

  sudo apt-get upgrade
  sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
  sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/php
  sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/php5-oldstable
  sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/php5
  sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/php5-5.6
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install php5.5
  sudo apt-get install php5.6
  sudo apt-get install php7.0
  do-release-upgrade
  
  Source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/565784/how-do-i-upgrade-php-version-to-the-latest-stable-released-version

Usage

howdoi [-n -v -h] -- question

-n		Number of results (default is 1)
-v		show full answer (otherwise shows only code)
-h		shows this help

Installation

Just run the following commands

$ mkdir -p ~/bin && wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/san-kumar/howdoi/master/howdoi -O ~/bin/howdoi && chmod +x ~/bin/howdoi
$ sudo ln -s ~/bin/howdoi /usr/local/bin/howdoi

$ howdoi check my linux version

Caveats

Hopefully it will save you some time and makes your life easier. If so, please share it with your friends and give me feedback here . But remember:

• It's just a quick hack to save you a few clicks. I wrote this in less than 2 hours so don't expect this to be perfect.
• Right now, it prefers Ubuntu solutions over other linux distros.

Licence

Perl's Artistic Licence