Install Fest :

LUG Manipal organisesd a Linux ( Ubuntu 9.04 to be precise ) Install Fest from 6th to 8th October . Well , this time , it was the job of the second years to do it . Most of us were noobs . We  should congratulate Saurabh for the excellent organisation of the entire fest which went without any major hiccups . Also ,at the last day , there was a small talk on the upcoming Web Development Workshop .

Web Development Workshop :

A workshop on how to make web pages covering HTML , MySQL and PHP conducted by LUGM .We ( LUGM ) focused on web development rather than web designing .We were planning this workshop from around 6 months but due to many problems it could not materialise . Kartik had prepared the slides way back in July .So , it was finally decided on the last day ( i.e 9th ) to conduct the workshop from 12th October 2009 . With only three days , we had plenty of work to do .The next day , we got the room booked ( NLH 405 ) . We got the top floor as there were many other events going on . The posters were up the next day at all important places in MIT .SMS’s were sent with a request to “Forward to all ” . LUGM website , the wiki page and the Facebook Fan page was updated . Also , a facebook event was created to futher publicise . Manu,  made class announcements in all the first year classes . He did the job single handedly ( Dunno why he likes the job so much ) . Meanwhile , slides were being given the final touches by Pratik and Saurabh . Kartik and Saurabh made a comprehensive plan of the entire workshop detailing each and every thing . Our seniors suggested some changes and then we were all set to roll .

So , finally the D-Day arrived . Most of us bunked classes to be in time for the workshop . The crowd was ok , almost the entire class room was filled . One more thing which is worth a mention is that we received a number of calls asking for registration and if there is any fees for it .

For the record, LUGM does not charge people for attending a workshop neither is there any registration . ( Check out the guiding principle of LUGM )

Coming back to the topic ,the first day went pretty well .HTML and beginning of MySQL was dealt with . As expected , the turnout on the second day was less than the previous day. The second day consisted of MySQL and beginning with PHP . At the end of the day , we gave a small assignment which involved the use of forms and POST . Many had made the effort of completing the assignment . The third day basically consisted of integrating PHP with MySQL , Sessions and Cookies .On the last day , we were expecting a low turnout , but the turnout was far less than we expected . We had kept this day only for application , so we demonstrated a login page complete with Remember Me feature from scratch .Although the turnout was less but the response was amazing .We had divided the entire application into modules and then gave some time for the students to complete . We were glad that many were easily able to complete the modules in time .

For more ,

The post about the workshop on the LUG Website

Slides of the workshop

Refer to the Guiding Principles of LUGM

Wiki of LUGM

LUG Manipal Website

Facebook Fan Page

LUGM Forums

LUGM on Twitter

First day of the fest, we had a huge turnout of enthusiasts. Majority of the first day was spent on burning the iso’s onto the DVDs and defragmenting the system. After that we made them partition the system and installed Ubuntu on their laptops. Luckily there was no disc errors and the entire process went on smoothly. And by the end of the session, everybody in the workshop had Ubuntu on their systems.

Second day was more of instructions. Firstly there was an introduction talk on the philosophy of open source, a general introduction to LUG and the history of Linux. It was followed by configuration of CNTLM to make them able to access repositories over I-ON’s network. Then a general overview of software alternates in Ubuntu including open office, synaptic, rhythmbox, transmission, geany etc followed, ending the day’s proceedings.

On the last day of the event, there was a talk on Mozilla Firefox from the open source perspective, with amazing goodies, courtesy Mozilla. And rest of the day was spent interacting with the crowd and solving queries. Lots of interesting stuff was discussed.

Overall this event had a great turnout and served the perfect start to LUG Manipal’s line-up for the events this semester.

Click here to download the slides:
Intro to Linux
Open Source Software talk

Coming Next is the Web Development Workshop .

So we bring to you the  Introductory Meet for LUG Manipal. It’s completely free and everyone is invited! We will be covering the reasons you would want to use linux, dispelling myths about it and in general increasing your Tech Awareness. Here is a brief gist of what we will be doing:-

1) Introduction to the FOSS Movement & the motivation behind it.

2)  Introduction to the Linux operating system.

3) Clarifying the LUG’s internal structure and how you can be a part of it.

4) What you get out of being a part of it.

This is going to be no workshop or class. This is a meet with a difference. Everyone attending is on an equal platform, and they can express their ideas without any other considerations. There will be a free interflow of ideas and knowledge, and youll learn quite a bit. Come down and find out what “freedom” is about!

Date:- 1st October 2009

Venue:- NLH (Academic Block 3)

(The exact room number will be put up at the Venue)

• Clients

1. irssi Command line client
2. xchat (Gui)
3. mibbit.com (browser based, ION users will probably need to use this. ##C has blocked mibbit though )

The above mentioned clients should be present in the repos of the Linux distro you use.

• Commands

1. Beginner commands
2. Advanced commands

Googling for “IRC commands” or “IRC tutorial” will gove you all the info you need to get started.

• Channels you should start roaming around on : #linux, ##C , #python etc.

There are a lot of helpful and knowledgable people on these channels and you can clear your doubts etc. here. Do not hesitate to ask them thinking,”Should I??”. Just ask and they’ll help you out.

Again, please google to find more channels.

The aim of the talk was to give a brief account on everything related
to search engine technology.It started with an introduction to search
engines and then went on to tell about the different types of search
engines technologies.Then we focused on the Google search engine
architecture.After that SEO’s techniques were discussed and Google’s
webmaster tools was shown.Now the final topic of how to get the best
results out of Google’s search engine with the knowledge of some
operators was covered.This is what the talk consisted of.

The reason for the troubleshooting session on the second day was for
users facing problems while operating Linux.Users discussed their
problems and were solved one by one.Some of the common problems
included users were facing is to get the package manager working using
our colleges proxy server. Next, they were shown how to install
packages manually in linux. This topic proceeded with a small discussion
on how to clear the dependencies.Then we had a quick glance through the
different shells and desktop environments in linux. The session ended
by showing the users how to run C and C++ programs on linux.

There are lot of things that need to be done so if you are willing to help plz contact lugmanipal[at]gmail.com

PS – this is just an initial announcement, detailed announcement will be made after things are finalized….

The workshop started on 1st of September, it was really heartening to see such a huge turnout. The first years were the most enthusiastic to pursue the workshop as they sensed strong content in our presentation. The total turnout was around 240, which is more than expected in any technical event held in MIT. MobiVision has set a history and should be written down in golden letters. The workshop is of 5 days and the batch is divided into two. One part is being handled by Python on Series 60 people and other by Android people.

The workshop will teach people two mobile platforms- Python on Series 60 and Android which uses Java. Android is a new software stack released by Open Handset Alliance which is led by Google. Python is a language which has a port for Symbian 60 phones. We did face a lot of problems in getting rooms for holding the workshops, but somehow managed it.

Android Section:

The first day was dedicated to Java tutorials and Installation of the softwares due to which progress was quite slow. It could have been better if Vista didn’t give problems with its authorization concepts (which were copied from Unix but implemented badly). The second day, we started them with  basics of Android programming and as usual software installation continued. The problem with Android is that we first need JRE or JDK to get the JVM running. Then Eclipse has to be copied which runs on JVM. Then Android SDK has to be installed and the Android Developer Plugin has to be installed in Eclipse. All these took a lot of time.

Many people were having problems running Android Emulator and Eclipse. These were called today at 4PM at Innovation Center so as to get the problems fixed at the earliest. Due to Ganesh Chaturthi college was closed and no workshop today. We hope to teach them a lot in next 3 days left in the workshop.

Symbian Section:

Symbian people were lucky to face the Vista problems the first day itself. They started with scripting on the second day with Loops, Conditional statements. Symbian Emulator is available only for Windows unlike Android Emulator. They even plan to install Python on the S60 phones which people may bring in next class. The people were quite attentive and picked up everything very easily. They still have 3 more days to go and hope by that time we may have many bonds lurking around in MIT Campus.

If people really take interest in Symbian and join Nokia Forums, they could earn lots of name and fame as most of the excellent developers do contribute and share code at that place. It would be a status symbol for our college to have so many developers

• Shell scripting on bash
• Mobile development
• Yet another installfest including the very important part of configuring the network interfaces
• Cubing (solving Rubik’s cube)
• Working with development tools like gcc and vim
• Basics of assembly language programming

….and a lot more!

Keep looking for our posters in the campus for any upcoming events.

The details of the Competition are:

Venue: NLH 104

Date: 7th April

Time: 6 PM

For more details of the events please visit the link http://phpcompi.lugmanipal.org

Check the Wiki Page: PHP Competition

Prizes are sponsored by Racked Hosting LLC