All Linux experts might already know this statement “Command line mode is more powerful than GUI” but newbies are scared about CLI.
Don’t think that working on Linux CLI is difficult as everything is opensource nowadays and you can get it in online whatever you want.If you have any doubt just google it and you will get many suggestions, select the suitable one and move forward.
If you are looking for some virtual assistant tool instead of google.
Yes, there is a tool is available for this and the tool name is Betty which helps you to get the information right from your terminal.
Let us go through the entire article for more details.
What is Betty?
Betty is Friendly English-like interface for your command line. Don’t remember a command? Ask Betty.
It’s similar to Apple’s Siri personal assistant or Google Voice Search feature. So, you no need to search any commands in google and straight away ask Betty with simple English.
She translates English-like phrases into commands in Linux.
This means you don’t have to leave your command line to look up an obscure but useful command. Just ask Betty!
How to install Betty on Linux?
Make sure, ruby and curl packages were installed on your system before performing Betty installation. If not, use the following command to install it.
For Fedora system, use DNF Command to install curl ruby.
$ sudo dnf install curl ruby
For Debian/Ubuntu systems, use APT-GET Command or APT Command to install curl ruby.
$ sudo apt install curl ruby
For Arch Linux based systems, use Pacman Command to install curl ruby.
$ sudo pacman -S curl ruby
For RHEL/CentOS systems, use YUM Command to install curl ruby.
$ sudo yum install curl ruby
For openSUSE Leap system, use Zypper Command to install curl ruby.
$ sudo zypper install curl ruby
We can easily install Betty by cloning the developer github repository to our home directory.
$ echo "$HOME" /home/daygeek $ git clone https://github.com/pickhardt/betty
Create an alian for Betty in your .bashrc file. Make sure you have to replace with your home directory instead of ours.
$ echo 'alias betty="/home/daygeek/betty/main.rb"' >> ~/.bashrc
Run the following command to take the changes to effect.
$ source ~/.bashrc
How to use Betty?
Betty is not doing any complex task and can perform some basic things. I’m going to run few commands to test this.
$ betty what is my username Betty: Running whoami daygeek $ betty what is the date Betty: Running date +"%a %d %b, %Y" Fri 22 Feb, 2019 $ betty what is my kernel Betty: Running uname -a Linux daygeek-Y700 4.19.20-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Feb 6 21:33:34 UTC 2019 x86_64 GNU/Linux $ betty what is the time Betty: Running date +"%r (%T)" 09:52:48 AM IST (09:52:48)
Betty will show the following statement if it is not understanding your query.
$ betty update the system Betty: I don't understand. Hopefully someone will make a pull request so that one day I will understand.
As per developer update. He doesn’t have the time to maintain this repository and he is looking for a new maintainer. But still it works as expected.
