Okay, yes. I know there are other Linux distros.
This project was inspired by this post on reddit asking for a Google terminal utility for Linux.
Linux has man-pages built into the system, containing way too much information on how to use the terminal and what commands are possible. Like some lost, ancient library the man-pages stand in the depths of the system, begging to be parsed and read.
There are even existing tools that can be used to search the man pages, such as the man -k command. Though something like this can be overwhelming to a beginner, as a search for 'change directory' returns some 200 potential results in a wall of text.
There are other tools that some have built (such as this neat site), allowing you tolearn about commands through their man descriptions, though this isn't exactly useful for a beginner who doesn't know that cd even is a command.
howto-buntu brings a user friendly howto search tool to the command line, returning a smaller and more relevant set of search results. In addition, it adds a ghow direct google search capability from the command line returning the top few hits with links and summaries.
Installation instructions are provided with each release. Download the latest release here.
- Google away using the command
ghowfollowed by search terms! (ex.-$ ghow change directory) - Search the man pages with
howtofollowed by search terms, or learn some basics withhowto basics!