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I am editing a file and I want to set the tab width (more likely the indent width) to 2 and I have come across a command (setq tab-width 2) but when I use M-x (i.e. Alt-x) on my system and I enter (setq tab-width 2) I get the message [No match].

I think the keystroke M-x is the wrong one. I get list of commands to select from, but what I am looking for is the right place to change a setting in Emacs with a Lisp command.

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    FYI, you can also use the set-variable interactive command: M-x set-variable tab-width ...
    – Solomon Slow
    Jun 14, 2017 at 1:51

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You are looking for eval-expression, bound by default to M-:.

M-: is different from M-x, which is bound to execute-extended-command. The latter is used specifically for commands (interactive functions that do something). The former is used to evaluate a lisp expression, which is what you're trying to do when you're setting the value of some variable.

You can read more about it in the manual nodes on:

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