Linux Guide

A TUI (Terminal User Interface) tool made in Rust to explore, learn, and recall Linux commands.

Online cheat.sh explanations · Offline whatis fallback · Real-time autocomplete · TUI mode · One-shot mode · Man page integration

Features

• Dual modes — launch the full TUI or do a quick one-shot lookup from the terminal
• Online explanations — fetches rich, example-packed pages from cheat.sh (covers all UNIX/Linux commands, git, docker, programming languages, etc.)
• Offline cache — saves cheat.sh responses to ~/.cache/linux-guide/ so repeated lookups work without internet
• Explain mode — type a full command with flags (e.g. git commit -m) to get a breakdown of each flag from cheat.sh
• Real-time autocomplete — suggestions appear as you type (powered by compgen -c)
• Ghost autocomplete — inline gray text previews the top suggestion
• Man page shortcut — press M to open the full man page for any result
• Syntax highlighting — comments, commands, and errors are color-coded
• Beautiful purple theme — clean full-screen layout with no borders
• Cross-platform — works on Linux, macOS, and Windows (limited)

Installation

Prerequisites

You need curl installed (for fetching explanations from cheat.sh).

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install curl

# Fedora / RHEL
sudo dnf install curl

# macOS
brew install curl

# Windows (in PowerShell as admin)
winget install curl

One-liner (Linux / macOS / Windows)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RehanIlyas-dev/Linux-Guide/main/install.sh | bash

OR

Cargo

cargo install linux-guide

OR

Manual

Download the latest binary for your platform from the Releases page, then:

chmod +x linux-guide-*
sudo mv linux-guide-* /usr/local/bin/linux-guide

Usage

TUI mode

Launch the interactive terminal UI:

linux-guide

Type a command name, press Enter, and get a detailed explanation fetched from cheat.sh. Suggestions appear as you type.

One-shot mode

Get a quick explanation without entering the TUI:

linux-guide curl

Output is printed directly to the terminal and the program exits.

Key bindings

How it works

1. Autocomplete — on startup, compgen -c (Linux) collects all available commands. As you type, the list is filtered and the top 10 matches are shown as a dropdown with an inline ghost preview.
2. Search — when you press Enter, the app runs curl https://cheat.sh/<cmd>?T to fetch a rich explanation with examples. The request runs in a background thread so the UI stays responsive. Results are cached to disk for offline use.
3. Explain mode — type a command with flags (e.g. git log --oneline) and each flag gets its own explanation from cheat.sh (cheat.sh/git-log/--oneline).
4. Fallback — if the network is unavailable and the cache is empty, the app falls back to whatis <cmd> for a concise one-line description.
5. Man page — press M to suspend the TUI, open the full system man page, and return when you close it.

cheat.sh coverage

cheat.sh supports virtually all UNIX/Linux commands (tar, grep, find, systemctl, etc.), version control systems (git, hg, svn), container tools (docker, podman), programming languages (python, go, rust, javascript), and thousands more. Subcommands use hyphens (git-commit, docker-run) and work automatically when typed with spaces (e.g. git commit). You can also search by keyword with ~snapshot syntax.

Platform support

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/RehanIlyas-dev/Linux-Guide.git
cd linux-guide
cargo build --release
./target/release/linux-guide

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how:

1. Fork the repo on GitHub
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-change)
3. Make your changes and ensure they pass:

   cargo fmt --check
   cargo clippy -- -D warnings
   cargo test
   

4. Commit (git commit -am 'Add my feature')
5. Push (git push origin feature/my-change)
6. Open a Pull Request on GitHub

For bugs or feature requests, open an issue first.

Author

Made with ❤️ by Rehan