i asked DJ if he wants to join me and after few weeks of coding there it was Manipal university’s first (working) Feedback System, when the point of hosting it came, i was surprised to find Manipal University has no Linux servers, i mean come on no Linux what are you people click sys admins, then we decided to setup our own server in the department, thus giving Manipal university its first Linux ( fedora 10 ) server.

currently it just hosts the Feedback System, but we are planning to use it as local ( internal ) fedora repository mirror, we need permission from the WiFi provider ION because almost all the students use only WiFi and not LAN, last time we tried we were denied by saying ” You are a threat to our network “, lets see how it goes this time. we will also require people to manage it but i think this can be handled very well by LUG Manipal, some pics

Fedora 10 server in Manipal

Fedora 10 server in Manipal

PS – i am looking for a way to convene them that setting up a mirror will be helpful for them as well as students can anyone suggest me how to go about it??

Python Workshop Poster

LUG Manipal is organising a workshop on Python, which is a dynamic object-oriented programming language that can be used for many kinds of software development. It runs on Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac OS X, OS/2, Amiga, Palm Handhelds, and Nokia mobile phones. It comes with extensive standard libraries, and can be learned in a few days.
The workshop requires no prerequisites, even knowledge of C is not required, it is aimed at people interested in beginning programming with Python.
There is no charge for the workshop and no registration is required, everyone is invited.
People using Windows are requested to Install the Following Software before coming to the workshop
1) Python 2.6.1 from here
2) Notepad++ from here

Note: These will also be distributed on the first day of the workshop, If you are not able to install/download them you can get them there…

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

Day 1 – HTML ( basic information about HTML and creating simple Static web pages )
Day 2 – Advanced HTML and introduction to server side scripting
Day 3 – PHP
Day 4 – PHP and intro to MySQL
Day 5 (extended) – MySQL (DataBase Concepts)

Update: Workshop’s PHP and MySQL Portion Syllabus

Update on 25th March: Download Slides of Day 1 of the Workshop (HTML)

The content material for this workshop will be basic HTML for getting a start to web programming. The basics of this tagged language can be learnt at W3Schools. We will then advance to the basics of server side and client side scripting and the differences between them. Client side scripting has been put in Module 2 (next workshop) of the whole web design workshop from LUG Manipal.

PHP is the choice of language for Server side Web Design. Those who don’t know much about this language better pay attention. People usually ask “What is PHP? Is it as powerful as ASP?”. Well! Its much more powerful than ASP frankly. You need to know both the languages before comparing them and just making guesses is a bad habit. To make you feel comortable, we would like to tell you that it is one of the most widely deployed technology of these times. Some of the most famous places where its used is Wikipedia, Wordpress (most famous blogging software), most of the Content Management System. Even Google and Yahoo make use of PHP for their pages.

Now turning to MySQL, this is the most widely deployed database software which has more than 5,000 downloads per day as the statistics revealed by MySQL AB. Being the world’s most famous Open Source Database, its bound to be quite attractive. Being a very lightweight database software, its easy to install even on desktops. People usually have a bad experience after installing Oracle as their systems get badly screwed up with reguard to speed. Its very small in size (some 150-200MB) instead of Oracle which is of some 2GB.

The scripting will be done on Apache Web Server, its the world unchallenged king when it come to server deployments, covering some 70%of the webservers. Lightweight, extensibility , great features make it the no 1 choice of web developers all over the world.

More Details of the workshop is:

• Venue: NLH 204

• Time: 5:30PM

• Starts: 25th March Tuesday to 28th March, Friday

References:

Get the Official PHP Manual from its website.

Get the Official MySQL Manual from its website.

Check the LUG Manipal Wiki Page for this Event

/ – Root directory that forms the base of the file system. All files and directories are logically contained inside the root directory regardless of their physical locations.

/bin – Contains the executable programs that are part of the Linux operating system. Many Linux commands, such as cat, cp, ls, more, and tar, are locate in /bin

/boot – Contains the Linux kernel and other files needed by LILO and GRUB boot managers.

/dev – Contains all device files. Linux treats each device as a special file. All such files are located in /dev.

/etc – Contains most system configuration files and the initialisation scripts in /etc/rc.d subdirectory.

/home – Home directory is the parent to the home directories of users.

/lib – Contains library files, including loadable driver modules needed to boot the system.

/lost+found – Directory for lost files. Every disk partition has a lost+found directory.

/media – Directory for mounting files systems on removable media like CD-ROM drives, floppy disks, and Zip drives.

/mnt – A directory for temporarily mounted filesystems.

/opt – Optional software packages copy/install files here.

/proc – A special directory in a virtual filesystem. It contains the information about various aspects of a Linux system.

/root – Home directory of the root user.

/sbin – Contains administrative binary files. Commands such as mount, shutdown, umount, reside here.

/srv – Contains data for services (HTTP, FTP, etc.) offered by the system.

/sys – A special directory that contains information about the devices, as seen by the Linux kernel.

/tmp – Temporary directory which can be used as a scratch directory (storage for temporary files). The contents of this directory are cleared each time the system boots.

/usr – Contains subdirectories for many programs such as the X Window System.

/usr/bin – Contains executable files for many Linux commands. It is not part of the core Linux operating system.

/usr/include – Contains header files for C and C++ programming languages

/usr/lib – Contains libraries for C and C++ programming languages.

/usr/local – Contains local files. It has a similar directories as /usr contains.

/usr/sbin – Contains administrative commands.

/usr/share – Contains files that are shared, like, default configuration files, images, documentation, etc.

/usr/src – Contains the source code for the Linux kernel.

/var – Contains various system files such as log, mail directories, print spool, etc. which tend to change in numbers and size over time.

/var/cache – Storage area for cached data for applications.

/var/lib – Contains information relating to the current state of applications. Programs modify this when they run.

/var/lock – Contains lock files which are checked by applications so that a resource can be used by one application only.

/var/log – Contains log files for differenct applications.

/var/mail – Contains users’ emails.

/var/opt – Contains variable data for packages stored in /opt directory.

/var/run – Contains data describing the system since it was booted.

/var/spool – Contains data that is waiting for some kind of processing.

/var/tmp – Contains temporary files preserved between system reboots.

1.

2.

3.

People have a myth in mind that Linux is still command line. So the event started off with the Vista-Ubuntu Compiz video. Shubhendra first showed them the effects of Vista and the whole crowd was quite astonished that such effects were really possible? We asked them how much of RAM you require for them? Hardware requirements? Answers were- “Minimum 1GB RAM”, “2GB RAM for proper aero effects”, “Dedicated Graphics card” and many more. Next we showed them the Beryl-CompizFusion effects on Ubuntu. Now people didnt know to say next. We again asked for hardware requirements. This time we got replies like “1GB RAM”,”512MB RAM”, “Graphics Card”. No buddies! It runs on 512MB of RAM without even a Graphics Card. Next I showed them the same effects on my laptop to prove that they were not false. The greatest myth regarding Linux was cleared.

Next was my turn. I know the section was a bit boring since I had to speak on the Open Source and Free Software philosphy. This was the arena where we all three tried hard to explain the people what it really is !! Next I told them the history of Linux in the hope that it would turn out to be interesting but it proved to be more disastrous. It became too technical. Well, leave it.

The last and most important part was the questionnaire round. People kept asking the questions like they had sessionals the next day. This was the place where as first year guy “Ankur Shrivastava aka OS” jumped in. Till now he had been controlling our presentation slides. Now we all four tried our best to quench their thirst of knowledge. Some people did ask foolish questions, but we do know the importance of patience.

Before concluding, we asked those people to stay back who really wanted to get involved in this work. We would be building website relating to LUG,Manipal. We plan to have blog,CMS, Wiki and forums on the site for the betterment of general public. To out expectations more than 30 students stayed back to register themselves. All of them have been assigned the work and now I hope on the first Saturday of next semester we can hold an install fest for letting people work on this hot-hot thing