Betty: Siri or Google Now-style assistant in the Linux terminal

What is Betty?

Betty is Crab o Google Now from the command line. Well, something like that. The tool translates simple English phrases into the commands that actually need to be executed to carry out the requested action.

At the moment, it is not possible to control Betty using voice commands, but yes through instructions written in the terminal. Betty it will show not only the final result but also the command that is being executed behind the scenes.

Betty Characteristics

As clarified on the page of GitHub of the project, Betty seeks "to provide a way to use the computer through natural language":

Specifically, the benefit lies in doing things with your computer without leaving the command line or searching the Internet for the appropriate command. Betty just works.

The typical example is the compression / decompression of files, which is usually a bit complicated from the terminal if one does not remember exactly the commands and parameters appropriate to each type of file (zip, tar, rar, etc.). With BettyInstead, you can unzip a file without complications:

betty uncompress file.tar.gz

Betty includes support for a variety of commands, including:

• count (counts the number of characters in a file, the number of words in a directory, etc.);
• config (change your username);
• datetime (current date and time, etc.);
• Find (search for files);
• Internet / web queries (download a file, show the weather forecast, etc.);
• file / directory operations (compress / decompress files, show the size of a file, change the permissions of a file, etc.);
• processes;
• user commands (shows username, real name, IP number, who else is logged in, etc.);
• controls iTunes and Spotify;
• much more.

How to install Betty

1.- Install Ruby (required to use Betty) And the curl (required by Betty to run some commands). In Ubuntu, just run the following command:

sudo apt-get install ruby ​​curl

2.- Install Go and download the latest version of Betty:

sudo apt-get install git cd && git clone https://github.com/pickhardt/betty

3.- And finally, you have to assign the file path betty / main.rb alias betty in your file ~ / bashrc. Assuming you have downloaded Betty to your user folder, just run:

echo "alias betty = \" ~ / betty / main.rb \ "" >> ~ / .bashrc source ~ / .bashrc