Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab in the Anna University Syllabus
previously there were only theory papers in the open source initiative - we have now introduced lab. Awesome effort. * Could not get the theory paper details in that pdf. * Do they still have the Theory paper now? * Is it elective or essential? * Is that happens in any previous semesters? * Do they get any basic linux lab in previous semester? Thanks. -- Regards, T.Shrinivasan My experiences with Linux are here http://goinggnu.wordpress.com For Free and Open Source Jobs http://fossjobs.in ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab in the Anna University Syllabus
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Shrinivasan T tshriniva...@gmail.com wrote: Awesome effort. * Could not get the theory paper details in that pdf. * Do they still have the Theory paper now? * Is it elective or essential? * Is that happens in any previous semesters? * Do they get any basic linux lab in previous semester? 1. I've sadly never heard of the theory paper :( 2. If it isn't in the PDF, it isn't in our syllabus. So I guess we don't have that theory paper (we - students admitted after 2008) 3. The Lab is Essential, which is *extremely* important - most students don't really get to pick their electives freely (from what I've heard) 4. We do get basic 'UNIX commands' - very basic bash and vim. Taught without any understanding, as usual ;) -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
[Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
OBJECTIVE: To expose students to FOSS environment and introduce them to use open source packages 1. Kernel configuration, compilation and installation : Download / access the latest kernel source code from kernel.org,compile the kernel and install it in the local system.Try to view the source code of the kernel 2. Virtualisation environment (e.g., xen, kqemu or lguest) to test an applications, new kernels and isolate applications. It could also be used to expose students to other alternate OSs like *BSD 3. Compiling from source : learn about the various build systems used like the auto* family, cmake, ant etc. instead of just running the commands. This could involve the full process like fetching from a cvs and also include autoconf, automake etc., 4. Introduction to packet management system : Given a set of RPM or DEB, how to build and maintain, serve packages over http or ftp. and also how do you configure client systems to access the package repository. 5. Installing various software packages Either the package is yet to be installed or an older version is existing. The student can practice installing the latest version. Of course, this might need internet access. Install samba and share files to windows Install Common Unix Printing System(CUPS) 6. Write userspace drivers using fuse -- easier to debug and less dangerous to the system (Writing full-fledged drivers is difficult at student level) 7. GUI programming : a sample programme – using Gambas since the students have VB knowledge. However, one should try using GTK or QT 8. Version Control System setup and usage using RCS, CVS, SVN 9. Text processing with Perl: simple programs, connecting with database e.g., MYSQL 10. Running PHP : simple applications like login forms after setting up a LAMP stack 11. Running Python : some simple exercise – e.g. Connecting with MySql database 12. Set up the complete network interface usinf ifconfig command liek setting gateway, DNS, IP tables, etc., Resources : An environment like FOSS Lab Server (developed by NRCFOSS containing the various packages) OR Equivalent system with Linux distro supplemented with relevant packages Note: Once the list of experiments are finalised, NRCFOSS can generate full lab manuals complete with exercises, necessary downloads, etc. These could be made available on NRCFOSS web portal. TOTAL: 45 PERIODS LIST OF EQUIPMENTS: Hardware: Minimum Requirements: - 700 Mhz X86 Processor - 384 MB of system memory (RAM) - 40 GB of disk space - Graphics card capable of 1024*768 resolution - Sound Card - Network or Internet Connection Software: Latest distribution of Linux -- Regards, T.Shrinivasan My experiences with Linux are here http://goinggnu.wordpress.com For Free and Open Source Jobs http://fossjobs.in ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
FOSS Lab Server (developed by NRCFOSS 1. Where can we download it? Once the list of experiments are finalised, NRCFOSS can generate full lab manuals complete with exercises, necessary downloads, etc. These could be made available on NRCFOSS web portal. Are the finished? Thrilled to see those manuals and exercises. 2. Where to get them? Regards, Victor ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
I am very happy to see this in Anna University Syllabus. Great initiation Much worried to think the status of the students who are going to mug up every program and exercise as they dont have any theory paper to explain what they are working in the lab. Regards, Victor ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
- Original Message - From: Victor Johnson Sent: 06/18/10 05:36 PM To: ILUG-C Subject: Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus I am very happy to see this in Anna University Syllabus. Great initiation Much worried to think the status of the students who are going to mug up every program and exercise as they dont have any theory paper to explain what they are working in the lab. Regards, Victor Forget about the students, how many of the faculty members ready to switch from traditional 8 or 10 programs (same lab manual being used for many years) and move to individual assignments to the students? I've heard many folks said it's not practically possible, that really hurts and certainly we're not mentoring our students; just spoiling their hope. ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Victor Johnson victor.li...@gmail.com wrote: Much worried to think the status of the students who are going to mug up every program and exercise as they dont have any theory paper to explain what they are working in the lab. As a student who sees this happen first hand, I'm incredibly worried as well. What will happen is, ofcourse, staff will google to find solutions to exercises, print them out, xerox them and give them off to students to copy. Students will type in the xeroxed notes, make tons of spelling mistakes - which the staff will have no idea how to fix. Average impact of this course on the average student will not be much. Most we can hope for is that someone new will get impressed from the NRCFOSS materials itself and want to find out something new for himself. Looking forward to see the result NRCFOSSS produces. -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
- Original Message - From: Yuvi Panda Sent: 06/18/10 05:50 PM To: ILUG-C Subject: Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Victor Johnson victor.li...@gmail.com wrote: Much worried to think the status of the students who are going to mug up every program and exercise as they dont have any theory paper to explain what they are working in the lab. As a student who sees this happen first hand, I'm incredibly worried as well. What will happen is, ofcourse, staff will google to find solutions to exercises, print them out, xerox them and give them off to students to copy. Students will type in the xeroxed notes, make tons of spelling mistakes - which the staff will have no idea how to fix. Average impact of this course on the average student will not be much. Most we can hope for is that someone new will get impressed from the NRCFOSS materials itself and want to find out something new for himself. Looking forward to see the result NRCFOSSS produces. Yes but most of the cases which I've seen - faculty members don't even google it around but simply using the exercises/code that has been written years back. Also they stick to some limited number game (like I will keep 6 to 12 programs only for this semester) and no matter whether students understand them or not. I would appreciate if NRC FOSS requests university academic dean or curriculum council or respective authorities to come out from traditional way of conducting lab exercises to mini projects which must be unique in nature and allocate to the individual student. It doesn't whether he/she can 100% success in running the code or not and I think that's way we look at, otherwise it's going to like the same even after many years like what are seeing today. ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] How to bring more people to ilugc meets?
On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Raman.P raam...@yahoo.co.in wrote: --- On Thu, 17/6/10, Arun Khan knu...@gmail.com wrote: This is an excellent idea. I have seen such a thing done by The Chicago Computer Society. In it's monthly meet, the first agenda item was QA for 30-45 mins. Any computer related question was welcome; the attendance used to be high 40+ Such discussions do take place in regular monthly meet. We normally keep that as last item. Great, I did not realize it as it was not specifically mentioned in the agenda. I would suggest to place it in agenda. -- Arun Khan ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
2010/6/18 தங்கமணி அருண் thangam.ar...@gmail.com: I am very happy to see this in Anna University Syllabus. Great initiation Future is Ours :) Great initiative though I wish this had happened sometime back. If only the staff are exposed to some real world projects through the FDPs, this initiative will succeed. Else it'll be rendered useless as all (the existing) labs follow the same restricted set of programs, written the same way for many batches. -- Salvadesswaran Srinivasan Chennai ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
[Ilugc] Re: make tutorial
To show an image file to X, showimg:: TABqiv -mtf *png Also you can call any rule like this. $ make rule2 when you have two lines like this anywhere in the makefile. rule2:: TABecho Rule 2 -Girish On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Girish Venkatachalam girishvenkatacha...@gmail.com wrote: Dear all, This mail is an attempt to teach makefiles in UNIX. Makefiles work the same way everywhere even in Windoze. There are also several names for the make tool. tmake, pmake, gmake, nmake and so on. ;) But all of them work similarly. In the BSD world makefiles are more subtle and much shorter. Makefiles also work differently in the autoconf world with configure script, Makefile.in , Makefile.am and so on. As you can see it is very complicated, complex and needlessly boring. But this does not take away the fact that makefiles are a beautiful thing. I shall try to illustrate this idea in this mail. $ make will try to execute the first rule in the makefile found in the current directory. makefile can be named makefile or Makefile or MAKEFILE. But it almost always is named Makefile. A makefile is organized as rule :: dependency.c dependency.h foo.c ba.c TABgcc foo.c ba.c dependency.c -o rule I think you get the idea. rule name is also the target name. In other words, you tell the makefile or in essence the make utility that to create the target rule you need to execute the line given with a TAB character directly below the rule line. And you also tell makefile that whenever any of the files dependency.c dependency.h foo.c ba.c change the target has to be updated. In other words make helps you keep your targets up-to-date. But all these are academic words without much meaning to hackers. So let me now talk in practical lingo. If you wish to create a mp3 file from a bunch of wav files or if you wish to dump a file an image file, you can write rules like these. out.mp3 : in.wav TABffmpeg -i in.wav out.mp3 You can also call it like this. createmp3: in.wav TABffmpeg -i in.wav out.mp3 The rule name need not correspond to the target file created. It is just a name after all like Girish. And the dependencies can be nil too. clean:: TABrm -rf *.o will remove all the object files unilaterally. Makefiles are a very powerful UNIX power tool and it takes a lot of experience and knowledge to use it effectively. I have not been using it well yet. But remember that there are makefile variables, shell variables, makefile if conditions and while loops and they should not interfere with shell's if and while . If you wish to write a shell script like this. $ for file in `ls /etc/` do echo $file done in a Makefile they have to be written like this. printfilesinetc:: for file in `ls /etc/`; do \ echo $$file; \ done Reason being that the makefile rule line is exactly that. Just one line. So if you wish to run multiple commands you need to run like this. TABcd /etc/ cat passwd and if you wish to background processes, you write like this: (rm -rf /tmp) \ echo started the removal in background Also if you wish to avoid echoing of executed rule commands you need to prefix a @. printhello:: TABecho hello should actually be printhello:: TAB@echo hello Try it and you will know. Have fun! -Girish -- Gayatri Hitech web: http://gayatri-hitech.com SpamCheetah Spam filter: http://spam-cheetah.com -- Gayatri Hitech web: http://gayatri-hitech.com SpamCheetah Spam filter: http://spam-cheetah.com ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
[Ilugc] [OT] Open Hack Bengaluru 2010
Yahoo! just announced the 3rd Open Hack event in India. We’ll be inviting 300+ developers to attend this FREE event which will begin with a series of hack-related presentations from some of the Web’s most respected developers. We’ll then dive into 24 hours of hacking using a great collection of web tools, services and APIs from the YDN, and other APIs and data from around the web. We will end the event on the second day with the awards ceremony plus bragging rights until the end of eternity or the next Hack Day, whichever comes first. Date: Weekend of the 24-25 July Venue: Taj Residency, Bengaluru For more info: http://openhackindia.eventbrite.com/ HTH :) -- Bharathi Subramanian ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
some more questions again. Sorry for troubling you much. 1. How many of the staff of colleges know the following things? kernel compiling virtualisation package management writing userspace drivers using fuse GUI programming Version Control System Text processing with Perl Running PHP/Python I dont know why my son and his friends are laughing after seeing the syllabus. 2. Do NRCFOSS staff goto each college and setup FOSS LAB Server? or guide them remotely? 3. How the colleges are going to get support for setting up the LAB? 4. It may take some time for NRCFOSS to prepare and study materials. Eventhough college staff get some PDF files, is it possible for them to teach those things to students practically? 5. Is there any FDP programme arranged for the Teaching staff in all colleges? 6. Is there any progress to make FOSS as essential theory paper? 7. Why they removed it from elective? 8. Why the syllabus has so many commercial products to learn? The commercial products are. --- Labs: OOAD LAB - Suggested SoftwareTools ArgoUML, Eclipse IDE, Visual Paradigm, Visual case, and Rational Suite INTERNET PROGRAMMING LAB - Filled with Java exercises. COMPUTER GRAPHICS LABORATORY - LIST OF EQUIPMENTS: 1) Turbo C 2) Visual C++ with OPENGL 3) Any 3D animation software like 3DSMAX, Maya, Blender --- Theory Papers: VISUAL PROGRAMMING - filled with VC++ and .NET ADVANCED JAVA PROGRAMMING - Full Theory paper WEB TECHNOLOGY - Theory Paper - Again filled with Java C# and .NET Framework - Full Theory paper --- I have to think on selling my house, if my son wants those software - Visual Paradigm, Visual case, and Rational Suite Turbo C Visual C++ with OPENGL Any 3D animation software like 3DSMAX, Maya VC++,C# and .NET 9. You can say that there are free software also mentioned like Eclipse, AgroUML, Blender. What to do if the colleges are not using any free software? What to do if the colleges insist students to use only commercial software that they use/know.? If they do so, where to report it? Sorry for the multiple questions and troubles. Really, it may happen to pay much if my son ask those software if the college asks him to use only commercial software. I dont want to loss our house just to buy software. Thanks a lot. Regards, Victor ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 5:54 PM, Victor Johnson victor.li...@gmail.com wrote: some more questions again. Sorry for troubling you much. 1. How many of the staff of colleges know the following things? 0 I dont know why my son and his friends are laughing after seeing the syllabus. I might know why :) 2. Do NRCFOSS staff goto each college and setup FOSS LAB Server? or guide them remotely? 3. How the colleges are going to get support for setting up the LAB? 4. It may take some time for NRCFOSS to prepare and study materials. Eventhough college staff get some PDF files, is it possible for them to teach those things to students practically? This is seventh semester for 2008 regulation students - who are now entering 5th semester. So NRCFOSS has a full year - should hopefully be good enough. 5. Is there any FDP programme arranged for the Teaching staff in all colleges? 6. Is there any progress to make FOSS as essential theory paper? I'd like to see that happen too :) 7. Why they removed it from elective? I have a feeling that was because not many people were taking it up. Or being encouraged to take it up. Or even being allowed to take it up. For example, even from the pdf - I'd say most people will pick Visual Programming as Elective I Numerical Methods as Elective II - partly because it is easy to pass macha, sappa paper da! and partly because staff have been doing that for ages. Atleast from my experience. Electives aren't 'truly' elected by the student's interest. I want to pick Parallel Programming and UNIX Internals - and I'll keep you posted on how hard it happens to be. 8. Why the syllabus has so many commercial products to learn? Because you obviously cannot do any GUI programming in C :) if the college asks him to use only commercial software. I dont want to loss our house just to buy software. We all know that you don't have to :D -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] make tutorial
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Girish Venkatachalam girishvenkatacha...@gmail.com wrote: Dear all, This mail is an attempt to teach makefiles in UNIX. Makefiles work the same way everywhere even in Windoze. There are also several names for the make tool. tmake, pmake, gmake, nmake and so on. ;) But all of them work similarly. In the BSD world makefiles are more subtle and much shorter. Makefiles also work differently in the autoconf world with configure script, Makefile.in , Makefile.am and so on. As you can see it is very complicated, complex and needlessly boring. But this does not take away the fact that makefiles are a beautiful thing. Hi , make is the standard against which all other build systems are currently compared. Make is at its core a dependency checker that can execute shell commands based on one file being older than another. Implementations of Make exist on almost every software platform, although by far the most widespread would be GNU Make. make is almost dead(virtually nobody is using today the original BSD Unix Make). Most Make implementations include a set of 'default make rules' which allow very simple building of C, C++ projects. Additionally make rules can be specified for other languages, but these tend to need to be customized from platform to platform. Make doesn't include dependency checking by default, although there are make rules that can do this for you fairly easily in the case of GNU Make. GNU Make's support for shell scripts under GNU/Linux means that GNU Makefiles can be very powerful, but use of advanced GNU Make features will usually render your makefile incompatible with other Make implementations. see the article what-is-wrong-with-make? : http://freshmeat.net/articles/what-is-wrong-with-make Make implementations are poor and dirty by today's standards . That is why we have few more modern alternatives GNU Autotools,CMake,SCons : GNU Autotools GNU Autotools extends GNU Make with a larger library of default build rules, plus extensive dependency checking capability. It knows how to compile software (executables, shared libraries, plus documentation, etc) for a large number of targets, which is something that rapidly becomes tedious when using plain Makefiles. GNU Autotools is the defacto standard build system for large linux programs. CMake CMake is a principal competitor to both GNU Autotools and SCons. It is a build system generator, i.e. after running CMake, the user has a native Visual Studio file at his disposal, or a native Makefile, or nmake file, or whatever their preference is. Off-the-shelf build capabilties are comprehensive and proven for large scale software development. The implementation architecture is far more unified than GNU Autotools and it runs much faster. CMake has its own scripting language that runs on all platforms that CMake targets. It is Yet Another Scripting Language, which puts some people off, but it has the advantage of not introducing any additional language dependencies to a project. Thanks Rg Mohan L ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
3. How the colleges are going to get support for setting up the LAB? LinuXpert Systems has been already supporting many engineering colleges in Tamilnadu in setting up of FOSS Labs using our FOSS Lab Resource Development Kit (customised installation of GNU/Linux with all the required application is done via PXE based Remote installation) (Almost FREE OF COST for the first time). 5. Is there any FDP programme arranged for the Teaching staff in all colleges? We have already started working on the above in conducting FDP programme for the Teaching / Non-Teaching staffs in engineering colleges. Regards S. Baskar CEO/LinuXpert Systems ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Monitoring Forge [http://monitoringforge.org] -Community Site by GWOS
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Arun Khan knu...@gmail.com wrote: First imperssion - looks like a portal consolidating the various monitoring tools. Too early to say how much value add it brings to the table since most of the packages have their own mailing lists/wiki/forums with their respective gurus participating therein. Zabbix, openNMS, Cacti are missing in their list. -- Arun Khan ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On 18-06-2010 17:54, Victor Johnson wrote: some more questions again. Sorry for troubling you much. 1. How many of the staff of colleges know the following things? kernel compiling virtualisation package management writing userspace drivers using fuse GUI programming Version Control System Text processing with Perl Running PHP/Python I dont know why my son and his friends are laughing after seeing the syllabus. 2. Do NRCFOSS staff goto each college and setup FOSS LAB Server? or guide them remotely? 3. How the colleges are going to get support for setting up the LAB? 4. It may take some time for NRCFOSS to prepare and study materials. Eventhough college staff get some PDF files, is it possible for them to teach those things to students practically? 5. Is there any FDP programme arranged for the Teaching staff in all colleges? 6. Is there any progress to make FOSS as essential theory paper? 7. Why they removed it from elective? 8. Why the syllabus has so many commercial products to learn? The commercial products are. --- Labs: OOAD LAB - Suggested SoftwareTools ArgoUML, Eclipse IDE, Visual Paradigm, Visual case, and Rational Suite INTERNET PROGRAMMING LAB - Filled with Java exercises. COMPUTER GRAPHICS LABORATORY - LIST OF EQUIPMENTS: 1) Turbo C 2) Visual C++ with OPENGL 3) Any 3D animation software like 3DSMAX, Maya, Blender --- Theory Papers: VISUAL PROGRAMMING - filled with VC++ and .NET ADVANCED JAVA PROGRAMMING - Full Theory paper WEB TECHNOLOGY - Theory Paper - Again filled with Java C# and .NET Framework - Full Theory paper --- I have to think on selling my house, if my son wants those software - Sir, Let me assure you that your house is absolutely not at risk because a PDF file mentions these. Colleges themselves make sure they have a 'few' software - to ensure their inspection from their certifying authority goes on well. One fine day I walked into my computer lab in my college to find Visual Tools Lab and Operating Systems Lab boards setup on top of a row of 8 computers per board. And there was one Red Hat Machine setup which was called Linux Server which students were not allowed to touch as touch would disrupt the telnet connections from other machines in the lab would get 'disconnected'. That the LAN cable was in a bad shape dint matter. And I am also sure that a lot of staff members will be wondering how to handle this situation - they will consider asking their friends (staff in neighbouring colleges) to loan some programs for the trainee typists(i.e lab students) to practice. Couldn't help this rant. going by usual standards in the college i have seen, this lab syllabus looks pretty ambitious and I pray that this does not become another joke in the name of labwork as is usually the case. Visual Paradigm, Visual case, and Rational Suite Turbo C Visual C++ with OPENGL Any 3D animation software like 3DSMAX, Maya VC++,C# and .NET 9. You can say that there are free software also mentioned like Eclipse, AgroUML, Blender. What to do if the colleges are not using any free software? What to do if the colleges insist students to use only commercial software that they use/know.? If they do so, where to report it? Sorry for the multiple questions and troubles. Really, it may happen to pay much if my son ask those software if the college asks him to use only commercial software. I dont want to loss our house just to buy software. Thanks a lot. Regards, Victor ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] make tutorial
On Fri, 2010-06-18 at 16:59 +0530, Girish Venkatachalam wrote: rule :: dependency.c dependency.h foo.c ba.c TABgcc foo.c ba.c dependency.c -o rule Wait a second, why the double colons specifically? I've always used it with a single colon and gotten away with it. -- Roshan George ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
I wonder why engg school mgmt's not showing much interest in open source tools/free software but like to keep an inventory of commercial/prop software installed and show it to the auditing commitees? In my view, it's not correct to mention that engg. college managements are not showing any interest in free software / open source tools. In the recent times, after discussion with many of the college management authorities, (i.e. Chairman/Director/Dean/Secretary/Principal) we found that, the management people have real interest in implementing free/open source softwares in their institutions and no companies / vendors / volunteers have approached any of these institutions in supporting/implementing them. Regards S. Baskar CEO/LinuXpert Systems ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
a nice initiative. i hope this will make all the colleges know about NRCFOSS and they will start looking for help from the organization, which will help further in promoting foss. i have a doubt. does this syllabus apply only to anna university chennai or also to other anna universities. if it does not apply i expect NRCFOSS should take steps towards that. Suthan.,A ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Arun Kumar open.sou...@gmx.com wrote: If any of the faculty members following this list/seeing this email thread, kindly requesting to get rid of using standard programs for using lab exercises and come out with individual assignments for students. We convinced one (new) staff to actually make the students write their own programs. Simple Data Structures. Linked Lists, Double Linked Lists, Binary Trees, etc. Result? Three months were down, and 90% of the class was *still struggling with doubly linked lists*. That was not counting those who still hadn't been able to get Singly linked lists to work. Most of which was, mind you - still copied - from other students (unofficially). The staff are not entirely to blame. They're 'just doing their job' - which is to help students get 'marks', and not to actually get them to learn anything. -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Vatsala Dorairajan vatsala.doraira...@gmail.com wrote: Sir, Let me assure you that your house is absolutely not at risk because a PDF file mentions these. Colleges themselves make sure they have a 'few' software - to ensure their inspection from their certifying authority goes on well. One fine day I walked into my computer lab in my college to find Visual Tools Lab and Operating Systems Lab boards setup on top of a row of 8 computers per board. I walked into the *same* lab, saw the same boards - and assumed that Operating Systems Lab was where people hacked on Kernels and Drivers. Turns out it was the corner where older computers are kept, mostly used for . Nothing. Ofcourse, Visual Tools Lab is extremely popular - all new machines with internat access! Facebook is blocked, but Orkut is *not* - and I'll let you figure out the reason why. And there was one Red Hat Machine setup which was called Linux Server which students were not allowed to touch as touch would disrupt the telnet connections from other machines in the lab would get 'disconnected'. That the LAN cable was in a bad shape dint matter. I think the LAN Cables are now better off. The Red Hat card has been replaced with a 'Windows VISTA Server, do not touch!' card. Two powerful dual-xeon machines sleep mostly unused - the are usually used as print servers and CD burners. Another one serves as the 'Anti Virus Server'. I don't know where the Linux machine we all telnet into (we are all 'user1' and our passwords are all '1234') is kept. And I am also sure that a lot of staff members will be wondering how to handle this situation - they will consider asking their friends (staff in neighbouring colleges) to loan some programs for the trainee typists(i.e lab students) to practice. I planned to make things atleast slightly better - write those programs myself (and have it reviewed by people with more brains/experience) and hand it to the staff. Much better than letting students copy the pos, buggy, really-badly-styled, and plain-ugly code that they now have to use. Couldn't help this rant. going by usual standards in the college i have seen, this lab syllabus looks pretty ambitious and I pray that this does not become another joke in the name of labwork as is usually the case. Yes - I'm sure copying perl from 'observation' to 'observation' is going to be a *lot* of fun! -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 10:49 PM, Yuvi Panda yuvipa...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Arun Kumar open.sou...@gmx.com wrote: If any of the faculty members following this list/seeing this email thread, kindly requesting to get rid of using standard programs for using lab exercises and come out with individual assignments for students. We convinced one (new) staff to actually make the students write their own programs. Simple Data Structures. Linked Lists, Double Linked Lists, Binary Trees, etc. Result? Three months were down, and 90% of the class was *still struggling with doubly linked lists*. That was not counting those who still hadn't been able to get Singly linked lists to work. Most of which was, mind you - still copied - from other students (unofficially). The staff are not entirely to blame. They're 'just doing their job' - which is to help students get 'marks', and not to actually get them to learn anything. I agree, students also should come forward if staff open to ahead with the new approach or giving choice on their own, take that as a advantage and use it. ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, 2010-06-18 at 20:27 +0530, Yuvi Panda wrote: I think the LAN Cables are now better off. The Red Hat card has been replaced with a 'Windows VISTA Server, do not touch!' card. Two powerful dual-xeon machines sleep mostly unused - the are usually used as print servers and CD burners. Another one serves as the 'Anti Virus Server'. I don't know where the Linux machine we all telnet into (we are all 'user1' and our passwords are all '1234') is kept. This made me laugh out loud, mostly because I can relate. 1234 indeed. -- Roshan George ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 8:53 PM, Roshan George ros...@arjie.com wrote: This made me laugh out loud, mostly because I can relate. 1234 indeed. Obviously so much more secure than 123 ;) -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:39:11 +0530 wrote OBJECTIVE: 1. Kernel configuration, compilation and installation :Download / access the latest kernel source code from kernel.org,compile the kernel and install it in the local system.Try to view the source code of the kernel 3. Compiling from source :learn about the various build systems used like the auto* family, cmake, ant etc. instead of just running the commands. This could involve the full process like fetching from a cvs and also include autoconf, automake etc., It clearly shows that the person who developed this syllabus dont have knowledge in kernel compilation. How one can compile a kernel without knowing Make tool?. And it is located in the 3rd topic after kernel compilation. The author of this syllabus is confusing with top layer an middle layer of Linux kernel and he also confused students/staffs. Resources : An environment like FOSS Lab Server (developed by NRCFOSS containing the various packages) OR Equivalent system with Linux distro supplemented with relevant packages Note: Once the list of experiments are finalised, NRCFOSS can generate full lab manuals complete with exercises, necessary downloads, etc. These could be made available on NRCFOSS web portal. FOSSLab server is an Mummy project. No idea, Why the author of this syllabus trying to give soul for Mummy. Hint for Mummy:: It was born in end of 2005 and 1.0 released in beginning of 2006. Suddenly it died. Again after 2-3 years back NRCFOSS again announced version 2.0 and released. No idea what is the difference b/w 1.0 and 2.0. Again it died after Mr.Srinivasan left out from NRCFOSS-AUKBC. So I am calling FOSSLab server is like Mummy. No idea when it will come out and die again. TOTAL: 45 PERIODS LIST OF EQUIPMENTS: Hardware: Minimum Requirements: - 700 Mhz X86 Processor - 384 MB of system memory (RAM) - 40 GB of disk space - Graphics card capable of 1024*768 resolution - Sound Card - Network or Internet Connection Software: Latest distribution of Linux The suggested configuration is useless for kernel compilation. Linux kernel 2.6.x may take many days to complete the compilation for the above suggested configuration. I am wondering, first of all latest Linux will work on 384MB RAM. Minimum expertise skillset should be required to do all the above stuffs. But still the content is confusing the target audience. So the final target will not be like Linux application development or Linux kernel programming or what else. This kind of syllabus will create more panic for target audience about Linux instead of promoting FOSS/GNU Linux. -Prakash ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
There is no point in lamenting about the system, unless we do our bit to set right. So from ILUGC let us do some thing. My ideas a. Write detailed notes for the chapters given, in our wiki page. We shall cover background theory also. b. Design exercises and publish in wiki. There should be two sets. One basic with solutions with lot of explanation. Other only problem statements. c.Write notes from the angle of a teacher - i.e. some thing like hints, timings of each chapter etc., d.Create presentation materials in ilugc site. e.Let us cover the syllabus in regular/special lug meets, record the video and publish f.The videos can be screencasts also. g.Conduct FDP in colleges. Except for videos and FDP, we don't need any extra resource. We don't even need to meet. They can be in wiki page itself. I will try to complete perl portion in a week's time. Raman.P blog:http://ramanchennai.wordpress.com/ ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 21:08, prakash srinivasan asprakash...@rediffmail.com wrote: Minimum expertise skillset should be required to do all the above stuffs. But still the content is confusing the target audience. So the final target will not be like Linux application development or Linux kernel programming or what else. The 'target audience' here are budding Computer Scientists and Engineers, who *must* know the innards of the various software described in the core courses, such as Operating Systems, Compilers, Databases, etc. In order to know that, you must know how to work in a DBMS and how operating systems and compilers work. Knowledge of how a software works cannot be attained for proprietary solutions, but free and open source software makes it possible. The text for Operating Systems has a few interesting case studies which no one studies (it is out of the syllabus, not an important question are the reasons oft supplied). I had an interest in Operating Systems and read some code from Minix as I knew Linux was too complex. (Code reading is quite an interesting journey in itself.) I didn't complete it for want of knowledge about assembly language. The curriculum for the Compiler Design lab is pretty good for an undergraduate course, but most colleges supply the programs to students, as Yuvi had remarked. However the curriculum for the operating systems lab was measly, with basic shell commands occupying one fourth of the syllabus. The only programs we actually coded were the scheduling algorithms and a single memory management program. This lab seriously needs a revamp. I prefer not to rant on, but the abysmal standards of the practical courses in CSE don't give students the practice they ought to have before becoming scientists and engineers. But the sad state of affairs in our current system produces more people who can do what one says, but can't think of their own. Of course, this is a majority and doesn't include all CSE students. The major problem with the current system is that the curriculum aims for a lowest common denominator of skills, and doesn't allow for diversification even in the last few semesters. Colleges elect the electives, rather than the students. This kind of syllabus will create more panic for target audience about Linux instead of promoting FOSS/GNU Linux. I don't think the mission of this course is to promote FOSS. It is rather to provide students with skills that they can use in real life projects. -- Salvadesswaran Srinivasan Chennai ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 9:36 PM, Salvadesswaran P.S. salvadesswa...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 21:08, prakash srinivasan asprakash...@rediffmail.com wrote: Minimum expertise skillset should be required to do all the above stuffs. But still the content is confusing the target audience. So the final target will not be like Linux application development or Linux kernel programming or what else. The 'target audience' here are budding Computer Scientists and Engineers, That why most of the Engineers are writing HTML code for web browser, instead writing code of browser itself. your long mail seems me that you also don't have the idea of configuring and compiling Linux kernel . This kind of syllabus will create more panic for target audience about Linux instead of promoting FOSS/GNU Linux. I don't think the mission of this course is to promote FOSS. It is rather to provide students with skills that they can use in real life projects. what do you mean real life project? Thanks Rg Mohan L ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
[Ilugc] [llugc] [Tip] Find out what RAM type you have in Linux
To check what RAM memory type yo have installed (and also see other useful information about your system), do a * sudo dmidecode* Depending on the version of *dmidecode* you have installed and the hardware configuration you have,each hardware device will have a certain type number assigned t it. if you know, your RAM's type number, do like as * sudo dmidecode --type 9 * and the output will be something like *# dmidecode 2.9 SMBIOS 2.4 present.* ** *Handle 0x0019, DMI type 9, 13 bytes* *System Slot Information* *Designation: PCI SLOT 1* *Type: 32-bit PCI* *Current Usage: Available* *Length: Long* *ID: 1* *Characteristics:* *3.3 V is provided* *PME signal is supported* *SMBus signal is supported* ** *Version: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz* *Voltage: 6.6 V* *External Clock: 800 MHz* *Max Speed: 4000 MHz* ** *Current Speed: 2000 MHz* ** *Status: No errors detected* *End Of Table* ** * * -- Regards, Tha.Suresh Kanchi Linux User Group Rocks http://kanchilug.wordpress.com My experiences with Linux are here, http://thasulinux.wordpress.com ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
[Ilugc] OAOD (Mombono)
Application: Mombono What it is: Bombono DVD is a DVD authoring program for Linux. It is made easy to use and has nice and clean GUI (Gtk). Features: # Excellent MPEG viewer: Timeline and Monitor # Real WYSIWYG Menu Editor with live thumbnails # Comfortable Drag-n-Drop support # You can author to folder, make ISO-image or burn directly to DVD # Reauthoring: you can import video from DVD discs. To know more about: http://www.bombono.org/cgi-bin/wiki/ To install: sudo apt-get install bombono -- Cheers, Dhastha Kanchi Linux User Group Rocks ! http://kanchilug.wordpress.com My Works on Linux http://dowithlinux.wordpress.com ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
[ilugc] [Tip] Find out what RAM type you have in Linux
To check what RAM memory type yo have installed (and also see other useful information about your system), do a * sudo dmidecode* Depending on the version of *dmidecode* you have installed and the hardware configuration you have,each hardware device will have a certain type number assigned t it. if you know, your RAM's type number, do like as * sudo dmidecode --type 9 * and the output will be something like *# dmidecode 2.9 SMBIOS 2.4 present.* ** *Handle 0x0019, DMI type 9, 13 bytes* *System Slot Information* *Designation: PCI SLOT 1* *Type: 32-bit PCI* *Current Usage: Available* *Length: Long* *ID: 1* *Characteristics:* *3.3 V is provided* *PME signal is supported* *SMBus signal is supported* ** *Version: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz* *Voltage: 6.6 V* *External Clock: 800 MHz* *Max Speed: 4000 MHz* ** *Current Speed: 2000 MHz* ** *Status: No errors detected* *End Of Table* ** -- Regards, Tha.Suresh Kanchi Linux User Group Rocks http://kanchilug.wordpress.com My experiences with Linux are here, http://thasulinux.wordpress.com ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] Open Source Lab Syllabus
Today night we had a good conversation with my son and his friends. After seeing this thread those guys could not stop laughing for a longer time. They immediately called their friends and asked to read it fully. The laughing is spreading. :-) But I could not answer for the question from a boy. Why Uncle, there is no reply to the list from NRCFOSS for any of the questions? Do Anyone know? I like this list very much. I dont know how I missed it so far. Please feel free to guide me If I am wrongly questioning here. Do we have rights to talk about the activities of NRCFOSS? If it is going to get the credits for creating that excellent syllabus and pushing to academic labs, It will be nice if they reply for the queries for the questions here. http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/pipermail/ilugc/2010-June/057995.html Thanks for the reply from baskar. So happy to read about his activities in many colleges. Those colleges are blessed with the holy blood of FOSS. Thanks for wonderful contribution. I like the reply from raman. Instead of querying someone, Why cant we give some solution? Never thought on this view. Thanks raman. Let us start our contribution to the student community. Please give the url to the wiki page. I will do my best to add content. so, the community gives 1. support to FOSS LAB 2. run FDP session 3. create notes for students and lectures 4. may be more things my son may ask like What is the contribution of NRCFOSS? Thanks all for being patient for accepting all this new man's shoutings. Regards, Victor ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
Re: [Ilugc] List of FOSS clubs
Do you guide the students to create a lug or FOSS club within themself when you reach so many colleges? Like to know how you communicate to the loads of students you meet in each college. Myself has got involved in the FOSS promotional activitiy, mainly in education since August 2003 when LinuXpert Systems was started (It was also my aim that, the academic community should not be left behind in FOSS development and keep trying to cultivate the culture of knowledge sharing through Free softwares among the future young minds). When I go for colleges, I request either the dept. / management authorities to arrange for a introduction seminar about Linux/FOSS to create awareness among the students and staffs and at end of the program, I used to distribute GNU/Linux CD/DVDs to the students and ask them to try installing in their computers. (I hope many students/staff members in this list know this very well) How do you follow the progress of their continuous learning of linux? I was always in touch with these institutions and keep getting the feedback either from dept. or from the students and the reply was many students have been using linux / open source after your program. Regards S. Baskar CEO/LinuXpert Systems ___ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
