Software Freedom Day at SSN College of Engineering

A one day workshop was conducted under the auspices of the SSN Student Chapter of IEEE by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in association with SSN LUG on September 19, 2009 in commemoration of Software Freedom Day. Students in junior years from B.E, M.E. and MCA were exposed to Free and Open Source Software(FOSS).

Sri Ramadoss Mahalingam, associate at NRCFOSS, AU-KBC introduced the participants to the realm of open source software.  He elucidated on the history of computer software, and why Richard Stallman started the movement in the early 80s.

Mr. Ramadoss talking about the Free Software Movement

The participants eagerly listened to his talk, and raised quite a few doubts. The talk illuminated those present about the need to shun proprietary software, and adopt free software.  The students were all ears as he spoke about how Stallman initiated a revolution in the software industry, that will only grow as SaaS becomes the primary model of business.

Students are all ears as he talks about Stallman’s crusade against restrictive software licences

After breaking for tea, the participants returned to witness a demonstration of a Linux installation procedure.

Srikanth (logic on Twitter), SSN alumnus guided the attendees through the installation of Linux. Salvadesswaran, student coordinator then helped them to get a feel of the system, and the applications they’ll use on their systems. Mr. Ramadoss also demonstrated the use of Indic language tools available in Linux.

Thana Shyam, SSN alumnus and founder of JargonHandlers.com taught them the rudiments of LAMP, and how to create applications using PHP and MySQL.

Mr. Thana Shyam of  jargonhandlers.com teaches about basic PHP programming

Students try to create databases using PHPMyAdmin

Our sincere thanks to Mr. V. Balasubramanian and Mr. D. Venkata Vara Prasad, Assistant Professors, Dept. of CSE, SSN CE for organising this event and exposing the juniors to the domain of FOSS. We are also grateful to SSN-LUG and the SSN Student Chapter of IEEE for aiding us in the smooth conduct of the event.

Fedoraaaaaaaaa!!! Rocking @ SSN!

I’ve been using Fedora 11 on my laptop right from the day I bought it a month back. I did the usual work like installing the media and development packages which I use often. I didn’t update it though, as I do with my desktop. Yesterday at college I had an idea, and presto, it worked! Yeah, presto made it work. Fedora’s yum-presto plugin is my latest obsession, and I’m playing with it for a week or so on my desktop. Basically this is what presto does in a nutshell:

• It compares the local package copy on your PC with the latest updated RPM on the repository mirror. I use the IIT-K mirror, it is blazing fast for me.
• Delta RPMs on the mirror store the difference(delta) between the versions, so the plugin downloads the drpms, then builds the entire rpm files using the local sources and the drpms.
• Thus, you save on a lot of bandwidth, and spare the mirrors from overload (which is a very good thing to do).

My idea was this:

Behind the college proxy server, we can only download files which are smaller than 25MB in size. I guessed that since I had saved 65 to 80% on bandwidth using yum-presto on my desktop, I’d surely save 40 to 50 % on my laptop since the packages are a bit older than the desktop.

I edited the yum config file to include the proxy server settings:

$ su -c ‘gedit /etc/yum.conf’

Add a line:

proxy=http://proxyhost:proxyport

Then save and close the file.

Now I had already installed yum-presto on my laptop using:

$ su -c ‘yum install yum-presto’

Now I started updating my system, using:

$ su -c ‘yum update’

I left it running from 11 am to 2 pm, and by then all packages had been downloaded. Another few minutes, and my system was up to date. As I had predicted, none of the packages downloaded exceeded the 25MB limit. So I guess that Fedora is the best OS to use and update at SSN!

Paradigm 2009 Rocked!!!

Well, the tech fest of our department was on September 5, and it was simply mind blowing. We saw 5332 registrations, a new record and the online events were such huge hits that we had around 20,000 hits on the online event pages. Paradigm 2009 truly rocked, eclipsing all others of its ilk. Our online presence was unparalleled (Yeah, some people’s online presence was not their own in the first place!) The online quiz was my event, and the first round was quite easy. For the second I went bonkers and set questions not normally expected of quizzers, with some out of the box (mokka!!) skills needed.

Many people have been asking about the answers to the two rounds, and here they are:

Paradigm 2k9 Online Quiz – Round 1

ROUND 1 ANSWERS:

1. Pakistan. The list of India’s opponents in the inaugural World T-20.
2. Rocky, Chuck Wepner
3. Lock and Key – Dindigul and Robert Key
4. Bombay University – All are graduates of the varsity
5. Intel – Ajay Bhatt and Gordon Moore
6. Ubuntu – Jackalope and Koala
7. Sherlock Holmes – Jeremy Brett and Rodert Downey junior
8. Holmesian Deduction using Modus Ponens

Paradigm 2k9 Online Quiz – Round 2

Now to the more diabolic(is that the right word?) second round answers:

1. The Google Chrome browser development team. Source: September 2009 issue of Linux Journal:) My favourite magazine.
2. Hardy ( Hardy Boys creator Edward Stratemeyer and G.H.Hardy(Ramanujan))
3. Postgresql – ITU, ETS and Database
4. Python – Python creator, Guido van Roosum and the only female artist in Monty Python
5. Ignobel prizes –Sanders Theatre, Harvard & MIA(for Paper planes, the tradition now stopped)
6. APOEL – A football club in Cyprus in the UEFA Champions League. APOEL stands for ‘Athletic Football Club of Greeks of Nicosia). Athletic Football Club – Charlton Athletic; Greeks – Zeus; Nicosia – Nicotine
7. Strawberry – The album cover for the Strawberry Fields Forever single by The Beatles and Coldplay’s Viva La Vida album has a track Strawberry Swing.
8. Iron Maiden – Both are pictures/engravings in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Murders at the Rue Morgue.

I hope the standard of quizzing was up to scratch. And we had this General Quiz on the event day, where Hari whackily signed off asking his own name. And guess the answers? All in all Azhaguraja, Mr. Bean, Vadivelu, Comedy Boy, Mr.Smile and so on. The finals was funny, with some humourous answers coming our way. In the end two cocktail teams(means all the members were from different colleges) won the first two places. Two from the winning team also won an XBox 360. Congrats guys!

We hope Paradigm rocked as it does every year. We only hope that brand Paradigm will grow in stature and become one among the premier events in the country.