Linux search tool for newbies?
 

Normally, if I want to look for possible command line commands,
I would search online for suggestions.

But there may be times where it is not possible to have online access.
Is there any existing tools (graphical or otherwise) that
allows user to search for and get suggestions of possible commands to use?

For example, if I type the following in the search prompt:

ip address

Then maybe the knowledge based tool may suggests these to look at:
ifconfig, ip


Thank you

you'd be better going to a used book store and buying a book on basic / advance Linux topics for the most part all of the "tools" have not changed sense its birth.

Catfish? http://lifehacker.com/5275697/catfis...-linux-desktop

That's a nice idea. An off-line GUI on our desktop which intelligently helps us to troubleshoot problems with our OS.
Unfortunately, I don't know of such a thing. All I know is if I encounter problems with my Debian OS then my answer will most likely be found on Ubuntu forums on the net.

Without net connection, you'll have to resort to your smartphone to speak your problems, obviously.
However, with the many debian problems I've faced due to incompatible hardware, thankfully net connection hasn't been a problem.

The thing with linux is that everyone can have a completely unique OS setup with their hardware. Even the linux kernel can be modified. So it's gonna be difficult to troubleshoot. But at the same time - no viruses!

From a terminalThen if you know what command to use but don't know how to use it or what options to useReplace 'chmod' with the command you want info about.
Book wise, Linux In A Nutshell, expensive but ibvaluable when your starting out, my copy is extremlybdog eared and taty now.

No.
I am looking for command line tool to suggest commands to use when given some search description.

Looks like the closest we can get now is :
apropos - search the manual page names and descriptions


But you get a yuuuge amount of useless data....

$ apropos ip address | wc -l
586

Apropos is the nearest thing to that, or google.

Not quite Alt + F2 and\or Tab completion, the man pages often give suggestions but try this on for size:Aptitude can search apps too. ;)

that's why I suggested. buy a used book, to save money. Because you'll be hard pressed to find a tool that will tell you what commands to use on the command line. Because they're are just too many "tools" that use the command line to begin with, as well as how would this magic program know what you have installed on your system?

it's a great idea though, maybe that could be a nice project for you. Write such a program to do just that.
all the tools to do such a thing as that are free and available. :D

A book is a good idea, someone suggested here as well: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...et-4175573362/

the package manager has descriptions you can search through.

I wrote my own about 8 years ago.
It searches over 44 Linux-specific sites for the search term.
You're welcome to use it,

Until the wheels fall off.

apt is debian specific the OP doesn't specify his distro/package manager.

Ubuntu logo. ;)

Oft used commands are typically from the coreutils package. The coreutils manual breaks down by what you want to accomplish. Manual is typically installable in a package.

grep -irl "search term" /usr/share/man is another search method.

Emailed that one to myself even.

Thanks for sharing!!!