ILUG-Cochin

The meeting of the “Indian Libre User Group” was held on July 25th 2010 successfully.(4th Sunday of Every Month)

Following is a brief snapshot of the meeting.

Date: 25-07-2010
Time: 2:00pm – 5.30pm
Venue: Internet Club, IInd Floor, AMI Trust Building,
Broadway Enclave, Broadway, Ernakulam
Attendance : 22

2.30pm

- Customary Introduction
- People shared their experience with Free Software.

2.40pm – 4.00pm
Discussion on Concept of Free Software and other topics

- Introduction to Free Software
- History of the GNU Movement
- History of GNU/Linux
- Concept of an Operating System, Kernel
- What is Source Code, Binary Program
- Licenses – GNU GPL
- Concept of Copyleft
- Open Source Software and its Difference with Free Software
- Drawbacks of proprietary software
- Free Software and Freeware
- Discussion on how freedom to study and freedom to modify can be used
- Concept of Community
- Development of Software through Free Software community
- Copyright aspects in other areas like Music and Movies
- Commercial aspect of Free Software

4.00 pm
Tea Break

4.30pm
Technical Discussions:

1. Emacs
www.gnu.org/emacs
Emacs is a powerful text editor.

2. Mencoder/ Mplayer
www.mplayerhq.hu
Mplayer is a powerful and versatile Multimedia Player and Mencoder is a audio/ video encoding and Manipulation tool.
Mencoder_Presentation

3. What is LTSP
www.ltsp.org
Linux Terminal Server Project(LTSP) is a Thin Client/ Diskless Node server.

4. Creating a Bootable USB Storage Device with RMS GNU/Linux
www.rmsgnulinux.org
RMS is mostly SLAX, A complete Libre distribution based on slax. Can be used on USB Drives and has a small footprint.

5. Troubleshooting Discussions.

5.45pm
Conclusion

- People were requested to handle small technical discussions for the next meeting.

- All people who came for the Meeting were thanked.

Next meeting : 22/08/2010

Website : www.ilug-cochin.org
IRC : #ilugkochi on irc.freenode.net
ML : mailinglist at ilug-cochin.org

Sameer Meetings

Warm Greetings To The Free Software Community,

The meeting of the “Indian Libre User Group” was held on May 23rd 2010 successfully.(4th Sunday of Every Month)

Following is a brief snapshot of the meeting.

Date: 23-05-2010
Time: 2:15pm – 5.30pm
Venue: Internet Club, IInd Floor, AMI Trust Building,
Broadway Enclave, Broadway, Ernakulam
Attendance : 27

2.15pm

- Customary Introduction
- People shared their experience with Free Software.

2.20pm

• Introduction to Free Software
• History of the GNU Movement
• Licenses – GNU GPL, LGPL, Concept of Copyleft
• Open Source Software and its Difference with Free Software.
• Other Licenses and Operating Systems like BSD.

Agenda : Community Based Learning Centers,

• Discussions started with moderator explaining the concept of a Free Software Community Based Learning Center (CBLC).
• Although the audience were confused initially on the idea of CBLC, they were able to understand the crux of it through examples.
• Since the discussion was as usual a brainstorming, there was no plan/ blueprint to implement.
• Several people shared the experiences with Free Software and teaching and excercising the four freedoms.
• The discussion had drifted to a serious topic of lack of contribution to the Free Software Movement.
• The 2nd and 4th Freedom (Freedom to study and modify ) was not being excercised by the majority.
• Many people pointed out the lack of Development/ Contribution groups or communities, also many people pointed out lack of initiatives in User Groups.
• The discussion was wound up with many people planning to give a thought to building the next generation Free Software community, from children with their energy and to imbibe the culture of contribution by equipping them with knowledge.
• A case study of the “Free Learning Institute” as a CBLC was taken up and discussed in brief.

4.15 pm
Tea Break

4.30pm
Technical Presentation : Basics of Shell Scripting

• Introduction to Bourne Again Shell
• Explained the working principle of a shell using a small C Program.
• Gave an introduction to built-in Environment variables and user-defined Environment
  Variables.
• Discussed about the following commands, which are good for daily use.
  top, ps, links, elinks, lynx, mplayer for playing vcd,dvd, and audio cd, extracting audio-cd files,
  vcd and dvd using mplayer, virtual console,
• Audience responded by asking several questions
• Because of the late start of the presentation the actual topic could not be reached, hence the rest of this presentation would be continued at the next meeting

5.35pm
Conclusion

• The usually short concluding session last almost half an hour.
• IB Manoj of the Free Learning Institute, explained the aims, objectives and future plans of the Free Learning Institute.
• Suraj Kenoth invited all to the Swathanthra Malayalam Computing Camp being held at the Free Learning Institute on 24,25 May.
• Jay Jacob announced a small Development/ Contribution Kickstart camp on 29/05/2010 from 2pm onwards at ILUG Meeting Venue.
• Few people volunteered to take technical presentations for the month of June.
• The Malayalam translated interface of tux paint screen shots were shown to the attendees.
• All people who volunteered for the Meeting were thanked.
• Everyone was requested to exchange feedbacks with the meeting volunteers.

We thank all the attendees for coming and urge them to put their feedback on the mailing list so we can improve future meetings.

Next meeting : 27/06/2010

Attendees

1. Sreenadh
2. Jos Collin
3. Lentin Joseph
4. Praseed Pai K.T
5. Thomas V Vettical
6. Nishanth A I
7. Avin M Antony
8. Nighil Thomas
9. Nirmal
10. Paresh Palicha
11. Raju Ramdas
12. George John
13. Faisal P P
14. Harshad P A
15. Sinu John
16. Prasanth S
17. Kevin Sha
18. Manoj Kumar I B
19. Harikrishnan T R
20. Manu Ram
21. Deepak S P
22. Jigu E V
23. Sujiv
24. Thomas M Vazhapilly
25. Saju George
26. Jay Jacob
27. Sameer

Website : www.ilug-cochin.org
IRC : #ilugkochi on irc.freenode.net
ML : mailinglist at ilug-cochin.org

Photos

may 2010 meeting

may 2010 meeting

may 2010 meeting

Sameer Meetings may 2010, meeting

The meeting of the “Indian Libre User Group” was held on
April 25 2010 successfully.(4th Sunday of Every Month)

Following is a brief snapshot of the meeting.

• Date: 25-04-2010
• Time: 2:15pm – 5.30pm
• Venue: Internet Club, IInd Floor, AMI Trust Building,
  Broadway Enclave, Broadway, Ernakulam
• Attendance : 19

2.15pm

- Customary Introduction
- People shared their experience with Free Software.

2.20pm

Agenda : The Free Software Movemement in the next decade..

- Discussions started by looking back at the growth of Free Software
in the last decade and the reasons behind it.

- Then the discussion moved on the following topics
– What is Free Software??
– 4 Freedoms
– GNU Movement and its history
– Open Source Software
– GNU/Linux and other GNU based Operating Systems
– Licenses – GNU GPL

- One interesting aspect was the attendees sharing their
bits from history on facts relating to computers and technology.

- What are the new challenges and goals.
– Mixing Free Software with proprietary for convenience
– Blobs in Linux Kernel
– Handheld Devices and Mobile Phones that run proprietary
software.
– Digital Restrictions Mangement

- How does the community need to look forward to the coming years.
– More activities
– Local self sustaining groups
– Involve the younger generation

- Changing role of User Groups.
– Significance as support groups is reduced.
– More to involve in decision making
– Contribution to Free Software

4.00pm
Attendees break for tea

4.15pm
Technical Presentation: Power of Imagemagick.

- Session began by Explaining the power and flexibility of command line.
- Imagemagick is referred at http://en.flossmanuals.net/gnulinux,
when they speak about the advantages of command line.
- The first tool introduced was “convert”.
- The power of that tool was visualised before them.
- The two most powerful tools of Image magick were convert and mogrify.
- Other tools introduced were mogrify, identify, montage, display, animate.
- The tool “convert” was used to convert a Malayalam text file to image
with decorative forms.
- The animate tool also attracted the audience very much.
- “Mogrify” is used for converting and resizing a whole directory with a
simple command

5.15 pm
Conclusion
- Thanking all the people who contributed to the conduct of the Meeting.

- The message was that the meetings need to be place where attendees
come to share, learn and teach, not just to listen.

- One member shared his view on the cost involved in migrating to Free
Software.

- Three attendees volunteered to handle technical presentations in the
May 2010 meeting.

Attendees

Sooraj Kenoth
Sreenadh
Thomas V Vettical
S Sreekanth
Sanalkumar M.R.
Faisal P.P
Arshad P.A.
Rohit Viswam
Swathi
Vineeth T.V.
Melwin C.V.
Thomas M Vazhappilli
Saju George
Jay Jacob
Raju Ramdas
Praseed Pai K.J.
Manu Ram
Shalvin P.D.
Sameer Mohamed Thahir

We thank all the attendees for coming and urge them to put their feedback
on the mailing list so we can improve future meetings.

Next meeting : 24/05/2010

Sameer Meetings

Indeed it was encouraging to see almost 20- 25 people coming for the
first IRC meeting. As there was no agenda as such, what was experienced
was total chaos, discussions on various topics and various aspects,
Although many where unhappy at the lack of a definitive agenda, indeed
it was a chance for many to try out IRC for the first time and to discuss
things online. We hope that the coming meetings ( 3rd sunday of every month)
will see better participation and collaboration with a fixed agenda and objective.

Date : 21.06.2009
Time : 4.15pm – 6pm
Attendance : 20-25

The attendees were from various fields including professionals, freelancers,
the media, etc..

The meeting concluded on ILUG Cochin starting a campaign, more discussions on this
would happen at the official meeting on 28/06/2009 and the next IRC meeting.

The next IRC meeting agenda would be “Campaign to promote Free Software in Kerala”.
( as voted by majority).

Indeed for people who were eager but unable to attend the official meetings at broadway,
the IRC meeting was indeed a very good experience ( from the feedback ).

Hope the next meeting is more exciting.

Transcript of June 2009 Meeting

Sameer Meetings free software, irc, june, meeting, online

All India Radio interviewed Jay Jacob of ILUG Cochin in a one hour programme involving other ILUG Cochin Members as well. Here are the details.

Organized by All India Radio
Programme : Surabhi,
Subject : Swathanthra Software: Digital logathe Jandhipathya Prakhyapanam
Date : 10/06/2009
Time : 3pm – 4pm.
Files: Low Quality Ogg Audio( 5.3 MB]

Pour in your comments on the programme.

Sameer Activities air, audio, event, ilug, interview, ogg