ILUG-Cochin

ILUG Cochin completed 12 years in August 2009. We will be commemorating our 12 years as follows:

The following events are planned

Free Software Awareness Campaign on the Street

Date       : 26/09/2009, Saturday
Time       : 4.30pm – 7.30pm.
Venue      : Marine Drive, Ernakulam
Activities : Assembling in Busy areas on Marine Drive and Menaka and Jetty.
with placards and Body posters.
- Distributing Pamphlets and Brochures about Free Software
and ILUG Cochin.

ILUG Cochin Regular Meeting, 13th year special. Read more…

Sreenadh Activities, Meetings 12, Cochin, ernakula, ernakulam, free, free software

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

The meeting for the month of January 2009 conducted successfully.

There were 17 people who attended the meeting.

The meeting started at 2.30 pm with the self introduction of the attendees.

The meeting focused mainly on teachers. But there were only two teachers present.

As usual there was a discussion about Free Software Movement, GNU Movement and Open source for those who are new to free software community. This helped the audience clearly understand the difference between Free Software and Open Source Software. There was a discussion on the history of Free Software movement.

Next we discussed about the various Free Software License – GPL, LGPL etc. There was a question from one of the audience about the necessity of licensing a software. One of the volunteer presented there gave him a clear idea about software license.

The proposed agenda was “The power of command line”. Most teachers are familiar with GUI tools. So the session aimed at giving an introduction to command line interface.

Agenda: The power of command line

An introduction to shell was given. The significance of shell was discussed. A good knowledge in command line interface can help the user to automate his work and thus he can efficiently use his pc. The audience were curious to know how a shell works. How it execute commands given by the user. The speaker explained with examples how a shell works.

The shell explained was BASH, Bourne Again SHell. In this session the speaker explained the virtual terminals available in GNU/Linux and how it can be accessed.

The first command discussed was “cd”. The speaker explained the how to use this command in different ways with enough examples. Here are some of them.

cd – change directory

cd – running this command without specifying any parameter will change the present working directory to the user’s home directory. ie if the current user is now at the location /mnt/drive_1 and his username is student, using this command the user can reach /home/student.

All command receives path information in two ways. One is absolute path and the other is relative path. In absolute path method the complete path information is given as the parameter of the command.

Eg: cd /home/student/directory_1

In relative path method the path information is given with relative to the present working directory.

Eg: if the user is at /media he can change the present working to a directory “test” inside /media as follows.

cd test

The next command discussed was ls. This command is used to display the contents of a directory.

eg: ls /mnt/drive_2

ls my_dir

The following commands were also discussed with sufficient examples.

pwd:

To display the present working directory.

mkdir:

To create a directory.

Eg: mkdir /home/user/test

mkdir sample

File handling commands:

touch:

To create a file.

Eg:

touch testfile

cat:

To display the contents of a file.

eg: cat /etc/fstab

rm:

To remove a file or a directory

To remove a file “rm filename”

Eg: rm testfile

To remove a directory “rm -r directory_name”

Eg: rm -vR sample

cp:

To copy files or directories

Eg:

cp testfile /mnt/my_dir

This will copy the file testfile to /mnt/my_dir

cp -r directory /mnt/my_dir

Copy the files and directories inside “directory” to /mnt/my_dir

less:

To display the contents of a file or the result of a command in pagewise.

Eg: less testfile

grep:

To print lines matching a pattern

Eg: cat /etc/fstab | grep “hda9″ (case sensitive)

cat /etc/fstab | grep -i “hda9″ (case insensitive)

Finally the speaker explained how to use man and info for getting

help on commands.

There was a small tea break. Attendees used this time to interact each other.

After the break there was a small session on basic funtionality of GUI wrapper program. In this session the speaker explained how to burn cds from command line. The tool used was cdrecord. He explained how to use it and the parameters the user can pass to it for burning cds at various speeds.

Shell scripting:

The last session was an introduction to shell scripting. The session covered on how to write script for doing jobs in command line easier. The speaker explained the scripting with an example. Although it was a bit difficult to understand by beginners it encouraged some people to ask doubts regarding difference between scripting and programming.

Conclusion:

The meeting ended with the following conclusions. It is very important to form small groups in schools with teachers and students for learning more about Free Software. Most of the problems faced by teachers can be solved within this group. There was a request from teachers to conduct classes in schools and also asked for including session for teachers in the next meeting. They also requested to conduct vacation class for students.

The meeting wound up at 6.15 pm.

Thanks to Sameer, Binny, Shibin and Kurian for their presentation.

We thank all the attendees for making this meeting a successfull event.

And hope the next meeting is bigger and better.

Attendees:

Sunil Kumar A U

Sanal Kumar

Arun Aravind

Rahul R Kumar

Rahul P

Navneet Sagar

Muhamed Sabir

Azad N

Binny V A

Sreenadh

Shibin K Reeny

Varun Das P M

Jay Jacob

Cilda Lawrence

K C Sanjai

Aith C

Kevin Sha

Sreenadh Meetings free software, gnu/linux, ilug, January 2009, teachers

Warm Greetings To The FOSS Community,

The Meeting for the month of December 2008 was conducted successfully.

There were 20 people who attended the meeting. The meeting agenda was aimed at Teachers, but the turnout was  less with just 5 teachers attending the meeting. But the mixed audience comprising of Volunteers and Students created a wonderful brainstorming session.

A detailed report on the meeting.

Date: 28-12-2008

Time: 2:30pm – 6.00pm

Venue: Internet Club, IInd Floor, AMI Trust Building,

Broadway Enclave, Broadway, Ernakulam

Attendance : 20

The first session as usual was an Introduction to Free Software, GNU Movement, Open Source Software, Licenses and GNU/Linux.

This session extended a little more than the stipulated time because of a couple of questions and discussion on certain topics, Indeed it was very encouraging to see people getting involved in this preliminary session which usually becomes one sided. One person stressed the point on why licenses exist for software.

Agenda : Free Software in Education

The Agenda was aimed at discussing about the present state of Free Software Education in Schools highlighting the shortcomings and ways to improve the situation. The main topics for the agenda were :

- Free Software Ideals and concept not included in school curriculum.

- Teachers interaction with others in the Free Software community is very

less.

- Free Software not really taught as a platform to bring out the creativity among students.

One Person pointed out the fact although the text books contain an introduction to Free Software the concept is in no way taught explicitly at schools and the syllabus does not lay any importance on it. One important point raised at the discussion was that the mere presence of teaching material is useless and teachers themselves must subscribe to the ideas first and then pass it on to the students. The teachers should themselves take up the task of learning the core concept of Free Software by referring the Web and discussing with others in the Free Software community.

One teacher pointed out that lack of time was an important aspect. The teacher also pointed out that awareness should be created among the teachers regarding the concept of Free Software and requested the others in Free Software Community to extend the awareness program mes to teachers and others involved in the IT Project in Schools.

The important aspect raised was that children should thoroughly understand the concept in order for them to learn Free Software effectively. The Misunderstanding that the term Free in “Free Software ” was “Free of cost” was still large among the teachers because of lack of proper training by government.

There was also the question that whether the teachers are genuinely interested in the concept of free software because many of them consider it as a forced implementation by the government which they have to subside to.

Be it the technology or the core ideals, unless teachers received extensive and core training it would become near to impossible to do justice to the students, because the amount of knowledge that trickles down to the students is very very small.

How can teachers be effectively introduced to this concept.

1. Make teachers feel they are part of the community (many do not know of the community).

2. Community should guide the teachers with necessary  books and material on the Internet.

3. Teachers should change their mindset, that Free Software is not practical. Again the other community members must help them.

4. Teachers are not introduced to Command Line tools. This makes it very difficult for them to understand the core working and also makes them crippled to handle situations

where the problem requires more than a “few clicks”.

Teachers should be given training on troubleshooting common problems in a native manner, thereby giving them a picture of the underlying concept rather than application specific knowledge.

5. Reference material for the curriculum is needed. This can be prepared as open content(Malayalam) by the community, licensed under the GNU FDL.

6. The technology is taught first and then it is explained in the light of the GNU movement. This approach works the best for children and the teaching methodology must be shaped in this manner.

Teachers and the Free Software Community.

As the discussion was moving talking about the Free Software Community and teachers in a different context, one person pointed out that the teachers need to be made felt that they too are part of the community and hence the community would refer to including teachers. Some relevant points from the discussion that followed.

- Teachers should be more involved in community because through them the community can reach schools.

-Teachers should be educated on how to effectively work with other Free Software community members.

- Teachers should take initiative to bring the community to their school.

by creating free software groups in school. It would definitely be a really big challenge to bring together and actively engage the group, but it would bring about a great change in the way Free Software is taught in Schools.

- Children friendly books needed. Cartoons are one effective method of explaining the concept of Freedom to students.

- Syllabus should be updated with effective educational methodology.

- Teachers already have a big burden especially in Kerala, hence teaching itself should not be restricted to professional teachers. Every community member should himself/herself take up roles of teachers thereby creating an environment where teachers themselves can depend on the community for advice and help.

- User Groups which need to be formed in different schools should also include students and teachers,

Creativity in students with Free Software

One Teacher stressed the point that creativity is a relative term and cannot be tagged with a specific activity. Many people proposed that creativity could mean that students need to understand how any application works, thinking out of the books rather than simply using the application for their needs. This led the discussion with teachers proposing that students need to learn programming. Some also proposed that, students still had to go a long way in using several applications that would bring out their creativity like Blender and Gimp.

One person pointed out that Information Technology and Computer Science were two different streams, and two different areas and it was Computer science that needs focus on the curriculum and not Information Science. The group agreed on the fact that the present project implemented had done a great job, such that Free Software has very much helped students to think out the box and help them understand the underlying hardware.

A strong point that was students and teachers should not become consumers such that they lose their ability to think. But of course it was a different question and topic in its sense and the discussion did not move into it specifically.

The conclusion finally was arrived with the point that we need to learn how educational systems in other countries especially for IT is designed and try to use the best of both worlds and create an effective curriculum.

Agenda Conclusion

What Teachers expect from others in the community.

1. Technical training

2. Opportunities in free software

3. Interaction with various Free Software groups, like this meeting.

Action items,

- A Teacher coordinating IT@School programmes proposed to bring the community members into the meeting and provide them space to talk about the Free Software Community concept thereby given some light to teachers. A program me confirmed before January 20 was in the pipeline.

- Teachers would earnestly take up the idea of starting User Groups in Schools. The teachers decided to work out a strategy and implement it before the next meeting.

Tea Break.

The attendees moved on to have Tea and Plum Cake.

Technical Presentation : Content Management Systems for Schools Sreenadh and Binny

The session started with an introduction to Content Management Systems and how it could be useful for schools. eg: How it can be sued to publish content created by students. The session discussed at length the popular CMS WordPress. After explaining the prerequisites for installing WordPress the speaker gave step by step instructions on how to install and configure WordPress on Debian GNU/Linux. After the installation steps the speaker went on to explain how to create posts in WordPress. He also explained how to create static pages. A few points on Configuring and Customizing WordPress was also explained. The session was closed with a few troubleshooting tips for WordPress. The audience grasped the session pretty well, waiting to try it out at their respective schools and offices. It would be great to hear back from them in the next meeting on the various ways they have configured CMS for their respective requirements.

An Introduction to Blogging

A 15 minute micro session was handled by Binny on the prospects of Blogging, for a few among the audience.

Conclusion

The discussion on the Agenda, was concluded with the point that the Free Software Education in Kerala, had created wonders, but it was yet lacking several basic qualities and this needed to be rectified. A few members voted on an “Open Message to Teachers in the Free Software Community” , whereby the teachers will be

- Enlightened about the purpose of Free Software in Schools and

- Reminded of the fact that they are also part of the Free Software Community

- Given ideas on how to to create an environment by teaching Free Software where the students have freedoms for their ideas and thoughts.

Since ILUG Cochin website was planning to move the WordPress the audience were requested to involve themselves to contributing their time to the website.

Few members expressed their interest at seeing a Malayalam version of the website and to this one of the attendees immediately responded with his willingness to take up the task.

The meeting concluded at 6.00pm.

We thank the following teachers who spend their valuable time in sharing their experience with us :

- Geetha Bali

- Cilda Lawrence

- V.K.Nizar

- Bruce Mathew

- Sanal Kumar

Special Thanks to Sanal Kumar Sir for the initiative for conducting such a meeting.

Thanks to Sreenadh for the Technical presentation

Binny for the blogging session.

Shibin and Venkat for this meeting report

Prinson for the Photos

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

And hope the next meeting is bigger and better.

Photos and Details of the meeting will be available on the web site soon.

Attendees:

Cilda Lawrence
M Geetha Bali
Sanal Kumar M.R.
Devaraj K.P.
V.K.Nizar
Sunil Kumar A U
Bruce Mathew
Saxon
Paul Francis
Vimal Joseph
G. Venkata Subrahmanian
Prinson
Shibin K Reeny
Sreenadh
Sameer Mohammed Thahir
Dasil
Binny
Alexandar
Kevin sha
Muhammed Sabir

Files

Technical Presentation: Content Management System Download

admin Meetings Cochin, ernakulam, free software, gnu/linux, India, kerala, kochi

The ILUG Stall at the National Conference was a grand success,
simply because we were the only stall with the theme “Freedom”
emphasizing the core values of Free Software unlike most of the other
stalls at the exhibition.

Of Course it is debatable question as to the presence of stalls
from fertilizers to fisheries at the exhibition, but of
course it was a very great opportunity to explain to them the
core values of this social movement.

Also considering the fact that there were lot of proprietary software
being exhibited in several stalls. We raised our voice against these
stalls, providing our help to replace it with Free Software. Some agreed
while others were reluctant.

The stall was put up from 13th after bringing in the machines the
previous day night. But it wasnt until 14th afternoon that the
stall reached full fledged functioning. Although we had been
given a small space at the conference, we made best use of it, by
displaying very good and relevant information about Free Software
and the GNU movement thereby keeping our stall always filled with people.

We had 4 machines setup to display various applications. One of
them was used to give a demo of the Installation process of the
Debian and Gnewsense DVDs and CDs we were distributing.

Ours was a stall, were anyone could just walkin and try
their hands at any of the applications, this helped people to
get a feel of what Free Software was. Again this is considering
the fact that 90% of all the visitors were either new to Free
Software or had just started using it.

In order to meet the expenses for the stall we had distributed Debian
GNU/Linux DVDs and Gnewsense CDs for a price. While we never forced anyone
to pay the original price, we explicitly told them to pay whatever they
like the minimum being the cost of the DVDs. While for CDs several were
given free of cost to the people who visited, especially students and
those who could not afford.

The first day saw very few people visiting the stall. The second
day turned out to be more crowded with people turning out in
moderate numbers. There were students, parents, freelance developers
and teachers turning up at our stall to understand what exactly
free software meant. The most important achievement was we being
able to clear up several of the misconceptions.

The hard copies of RMS Essays we had put up for a price were also
purchased by a few.

The first day of the conference had a big rush at the exhibition
venue with the delegates pouring in as well.

A couple of us had attended a session by Nagarjuna (gnowledge.org),
FSF India Chairman. After the speech we caught up with him and guided him
to a second venue to devliver his next speech. Nagarjuna came to the
exhibition late and visited our stall.

Although there have been discussions offline about our plans to change
the group Name, nothing has been discussed on the list yet. We made use of
the occasion when Nagarjuna visited us and requested him to correct our
name for us on our banner. He accepted our request and as per our initial
plans he corrected our name on the banner to “Indian Libre User Group”.

He also spend some time with ILUG Cochin Members, SNGIST College students
and MES College students. He also discussed a few points about the
“Business model of Free Software” with Mr Unais Mohammed” from KSEB.

We also had the FSUG Bangalore coming to put up their stall at the
venue. It was also a stall of the Ambedkar Community Computer Center, were
a handicapped boy Mani was selling pictures made by him using Free
Software(GIMP).

We had a great time with the students and faculty of SNGIST College,
Manjaly and MES College of Engg, Kuttipuram sharing their knowledge with
us.

Sunday was a day of action in every way. There were two sessions by
ILUG on the day. “Significance of Free Software on Mobile Platforms”
was handled by Sameer and an Open Forum Discussion on “Significance of
Free Software Groups in Society”.

The first talk focussed on the growing importance of Operating Systems
on Mobile Phones and how Free Software was the apt choice for Mobile
platforms as well. “OpenMoko” was used as a reference.

The Open Forum discussion was focussed more on helping 3 groups to help
form User Groups in their colleges. SNGIST Manjaly, Paravur. KKTM
Kodungaloor, and CUSAT. The dicussion saw several of the participants
pouring out ideas to start groups in these colleges. CUSAT already having
a Free Software group, just needed to get it up an running again.

A group of people belonging to the Free Software Community including
students had also done a protest against the main sponsor Novell, ILUG
Cochin also pledged their support by putting up posters of “BoyCott
Novell” in the stall.Some friends of the members of ILUG Cochin had come
in and handed over posters and volunteered to stick them in the stall. At
the same moment the organizers were rushing towards our stall to remove
the posters as Novell had objected to it. The rough behaviour from the
organizers were a matter of concern, especially the seizure of the cameras
carrying the pictures of the brawl.

The series of events that happened was bad in terms of the organizers
taking an unnecessary tough stand on the matter and not lending an ear to
the actual facts.

We were happy to raise our voice and protest with the
Free Software community opposing the likes of forces like Novell. Indeed
it was good to see a resistance in a programme of such magnitude like the
National Conference. Although there is no doubt to the fact that the
conference did its job, bringing people from all walks of life and ILUG
Cochin did the job telling people the principles behind it, the opposition
against Novell has also increased the significance and importance of the
event thereby bringing about a lot of questions into the community which
would not have been raised otherwise.

The stall was dismantled by 5.00pm at the end of the exhibition and
everyone left for home after an eventful day and 4 days of hard work.

Thanks to Binny and Sreenadh for spending all 4 days in the stall from
day to night.

Thanks to Shibin, Kevin Sha, Anil, IB Manoj for helping with the
functioning of the stall.

Thanks to the students and faculty of SNGIST Manjaly for helping us out
with the stall and taking care of it in our absence.

Thanks to

Nagarjuna G for spending a great time with us.

All the people who visited the stall.

And of course the organizers of the National Conference for having
provided us an opportunity to put up the stall

Unfortunately senior members like Jay Jacob and Balakrishan Sir
were unable to make it to the conference.

Sameer Activities CUSAT, ernakulam, free software, ilug, kochi, National Free Software Conference, nfm2008