Get Instant Linux Command Answers with the howdoi CLI Tool

Linux users often waste time searching forums or reading manual pages to solve simple command‑line tasks. The howdoi tool, created by an Indian software engineer, provides instant, natural‑language answers directly in the terminal, turning everyday queries into ready‑to‑execute commands.

Installation

howdoi requires PHP 5.0 or newer. Install it in two steps:

$ 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

Basic Usage

The command syntax is: howdoi [-n -v -h] -- question Options: -n: number of answers to return (default 1) -v: show the full answer instead of just the code snippet -h: display help information

Example Queries

Quick tutorial lookup

Extract a .bz2 archive:

$ 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

Detailed tutorial with full answer

Add a program to cron:

$ 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

Returning multiple results

Find ways to attach to a screen session (requesting two answers):

$ 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 useful commands

Upgrade PHP to the latest version:

$ 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

The answers are sourced from AskUbuntu, allowing conversational queries for a wide range of Linux tasks.

Project Source

The tool is open‑source and hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/san-kumar/howdoi With roughly 100 lines of code, howdoi demonstrates how a small utility can dramatically improve the user‑friendliness of Unix‑like systems.