Past few months..

Its been over 4 months since I last updated this blog. Past few months have been very eventful. I did some things and did not do some, like updating this blog, which had its own consequences.

Anyway, I had my sixth semester exams till 20th June after which, had a month-long holiday at home 🙂 during which I completed a 4-week course on PHP and started working on a desktop app. based on the Spelling Bee. The code is hosted here. A recent screenshot of the app.A lot of work is still left to be done. Hoping to do a release very soon.

Fedora Activity Day, 29-30 May 2010 at Pune.

A Fedora Activity Day was held at the Red Hat office at Pune, India on the 29th and 30th of May, 2010. The event page can be found here and the reports by the attendees is here. I had the opportunity to be a part of the event which turned out to be a great learning experience for me.

meejan , yevlempy and /me reached Pune just past midnight on the 28th. We reached the Red Hat office the next day at 9 a.m. The day started with a session on GNU Autotools by debiansid after which everyone present there spoke of the work they intended to do over the weekend. After struggling with many typos for sometime, I finally managed to get things working.

Meejan and /me worked on gFotoStat over the two days. Since the release of v 0.2, we had got a list of around 8 bugs/features to be worked upon and I worked on shortening the list as much as possible. Meanwhile, I also submitted the gfotostat spec for  review.  Meejan and myself managed to kill some of the bugs and added a Preferences menu to the app. (it is not fully functional as of now). Unmanindu suggested to add an option to select the bar or pie charts to be set as default view from the Preferences menu. Also, on the 30th was his talk on OLPC as a Fedora downstream which was recorded by kushal. View the talk here (111 mb)

Towards the end of the event, there was a feedback session and discussion whether organizing such FADs did serve its purpose and  FUDCon among other things.

Some work still left to do after which I will be finishing as soon as my semester exams wrap up (on the 18th) Expecting  the v0.3 release of gFotoStat very soon after that.

system-config-boot-tui

Past few days, I, along with Meejan, under the guidance of Kushal, have been working on system-config-boot. We wrote a tui version of it, which we sent to Harald, who accepted it, and after making the required changes, committed it in git.

The link to the rawhide build is here.

To get the work done, I had to study the python snack module.

The gui version code at /usr/share/system-config-boot/boot_gui.py helped a lot. There are two examples present at  /usr/share/doc/newt-python-0.52.10/ namely, peanuts.py & popcorn.py , are simple and very helpful. Hack on them and you’ll learn a lot.

Lots of thanks to Kushal for mentoring us. This has been my first contribution to a project… lots more should follow 🙂

Howto: Install Open ERP

Another HOWTO!  🙂

Install Open ERP on Fedora . View it here.

Past few days, an Update.

Past few days have been quite hectic. And, the list of my pending tasks has increased considerably. I am halfway through with the conversion of the Fedora 11 installation wiki(the small install guide) into a pdf, hope to complete it by tonight… also have to make a wiki page in the fedoraproject wiki for the same and another one on how to install Sahana.

Besides, I am studying python for the Subtitle Downloader at the DGPLUG Summer Training. I have been slow with python and wish to pick up some pace (but how!! 😦 )The class on RPM packaging was very good and I am going through mbuf’s presentation and the RPM Workflow link… could anyone guide me to something very easy to try a hand at ?

Ah! I almost forgot… translation! I also have to translate the wiki into Hindi. Typing hindi on the keyboard is sooo… tough, I am painfully slow at it, but still have begun and will complete it soon (hope so!)

In the meantime, my classes have already begun and I will have to leave (probably tomorrow) for Durgapur to submit a letter to the college for additional leave 😉

West Bengal State University, Barasat: Day-1

Yesterday was my first visit to the West Bengal State University, Barasat. Rtnpro, Meejan, Yevlempy(Harsh), Chandana and /me being led by IndraDG and StephDG reached the university around 12:30 p.m.

IndraDG led us straight to the Server Room. He got us acquainted with the equipments in use there. We were given a briefing about the wiring and the connections of the room, the batteries being charged by this *big* UPS (I have to admit, first look, I thought it was a CPU, a big CPU. But then, I noticed just a small display and no optical/usb drives… then I understood… this was one big UPS). This UPS is used to charge some 20 batteries which are arranged on a shelf, blocks of 4 in each of the five rows.

The UPS is a Liebert GXT-MT 6KVA UPS with a OpenComms Web Card.Indradg then explained some details about the UPS.  We were then told about the mechanism used to provide back-up during power cuts, IndraDg actually recreated a power cut by shutting down the power supply for a while. We were also introduced to the network configuration of the university.

It was time to get started… we set up a Desktop in place of the already-setup one. But the system was in a bad state… so we had to install Fedora 10. After the installation was complete, rtnpro began his task: downloading the Fedora 11 repository. But, rtnpro seemed to be having some trouble with it. A call to Susmit da… he mailed some instructions and finally…  there was some progress.

While rtnpro was busy with the repository, I had a cup of tea twice. The server room is so cold!… had to step outside every hour or so… Some posters citing “Do not switch off this machine! Work in progress” were prepared by StephDG and stuck on the desktop and the doors. IndraDG then showed us how to configure the router so that it can be controlled from outside. rtnpro could now login and check the progress sitting at his home. But, as we were about to leave, rtnpro hit the halt command on his terminal, not realising that he was logged in to the server. (thank you very much rtnpro! 😛 ) The system had to be booted again and the whle procedure cost us some 20-30 minutes.

However, we finally left the university at 5:30 p.m. I reached home at 8:50 p.m. and was so tired that I went to bed instantly, waking up at 7 this morning.

As of now, I am sitting alone in the server room – Day 2. rtnpro and meejan were supposed to be here at 11, but its almost 1 pm. and they haven’t arrived.

HOWTO Install Sahana

Just completed a HOWTO on installing Sahana, a Web based Disaster Management System. Hope this wiki would be able to guide people who want to install Sahana on Fedora. The link to the wiki page is here.

I would be grateful to receive any feedback or suggestions which would help me in improving my work. 🙂

HOWTO: Install Fedora 11

Yesterday, I was installing Fedora 11 Leonidas on my laptop virtually. I was using VirtualBox for the installation. I took snapshots of each and every step during the whole installation procedure and now, the result is a wiki page, where I have written down the installation procedure step-by-step along with the screenshots. The page can be found here.

I am currently translating the same to Hindi and will put up the link ASAP. Any comments/feedback for further improvement would be really hepful. 🙂

dgplug Fedora Activity Day @ BCREC – Day 2

15th of May, ’09 : With around 15 students present, at 11:30 a.m. we began, continuing from where we left last day.  Though the number of students decreased from the previous day, it was nice to see a few new faces. the students of the ECE Dept. couldn’t join because they had their internals followed by a lab exam.

The day began with videos. Few videos from tv.dgplug.org demonstrating the use of KSnapshot, Okular, PackageKit and a few others were shown. After this Yevlempy ( Harsh Verma ) began the session on basic shell commands. Makghosh gave the students a breifing about the File Heirarchy System. Together with Makghosh, he showed the commonly used shell commands such as cd, cp, ls, mkdir, rm, man, who etc along with the various options. The students tried out the commands on their systems and a few queries that came were dealt with.

Makghosh and Subhodip explained about the file permissions and ownerships, demonstrating the same by creating a test file and changing its permissions, etc. A student asked that why don’t we login as root and they explained the evils of root-login. With everyone satisfied, we moved on with Subhodip explaining wha a repository /mirror is. Then, rtnpro and Subhodip explained yum. With the local  mirror at hand, they showed how to install or update a package, search for a package, enable or disable a repository (they explained the contents of the fedora-local.repo file).  Rtnpro also showed how to use PackageKit.

Subhodip and Makghosh also set up a local mirror there which would cater to the needs of the students. Then began the session on vi by Dibyanshu. He explained the need of the versatile editor, demonstrated the basics of vi, the various options and commonly used commands. By the end of the session, the students were comfortable with vi. However, as an alternate to vi, gedit and KWrite were also shown.

After a 30 minute break, at around 3:15 p.m. Rtnpro began his session of GCC. The number of students decreased, however, in the following few minutes, more joined in, many of them new faces. The term GCC was explained first and then students were explained its basics. As the session progressed, they wrote their first program in gcc- ”Hello World”. Shortly, they were given an assignment to write a code to print the Fibbonacci series. It took some time and errors, but they executed the code successfully.

The Error-of-the-Day award will go to a girl who began writing the code in C but mixed it up with python (seems she has been practising a lot of python lately). She had  compiled the code unsuccessfully and was trying to find what error she had made, still not realising that she had used python in a supposed-to-be C code. 🙂 View the code here. The students did another few assignments.

Makghosh then demonstrated Anjuta IDE. A few students who seemed to be mulling over gcc were quite happy to see Anjuta which has a very nice GUI like the Turbo C++ that they generally use in Windows. Makghosh explained that besides C and C++, Anjuta can also execute Java, Python, Vala,etc. codes.  It was past five already.

A Power cut again disrupted the proceedings. However, that did not stop Subhodip from giving the students a sneak peek into Java in near-darkness on a laptop with the stuents surrounding him. Having distributed Fedora 10 DVDs, Fedora 10 FEL Live DVDs, and stickers, we called it a day at 5:45 p.m.

Pics can be found here and here.

dgplug Fedora Activity Day @ BCREC – Day 1

14th of May, ’09 : Day – 1 of the Fedora Activity Day  (FAD) conducted by the Linux Users’ Group of Durgapur, dgplug, in Dr. B.C. Roy Engineering College, BCREC, was quite an eventful one. 🙂

The programme began at 12 noon with makghosh giving an introduction to Fedora Project to some 25 students who had assembled there. The students comprised mostly of the 2nd year students of BCREC while a handful of 1st and 3rd years were also there.

His presentation was appreciated by all and it was followed by  the session “Myths about Linux – busted with Fedora .” by KishanGoyal and Subhodip. The general misconceptions that people have regarding Linux installation, configuration and usabilty were looked into. The Students came up with some questions and they were dealt with.

One of them stated that he has been using Fedora for quite some time now and he liked it , but still he had to shift to Windows as Wifi was not working in his laptop. He was adviced to  use Ndiswrapper  and configure his Wireless adapter ( A Broadcom  model) properly. Another guy who had unsuccessfully tried installing Fedora had come with his laptop and his problem was solved too.

After this there was a session on artwork by Amrita, Arpita and Debashree who explained the basics of Inkscape, drew a scenery to demonstrate the use of various tools and options, and also showed the students some of their works. After the session, Subhodip suggested that now, since they know how to use Inkscape, they can utilise their inter-semester break to earn some cash by designing wedding cards. 😀

This was followed by an introduction to KDE and Gnome by Rtnpro, Sunny_slls and sherry151. KDE found liking among the students who seemed to be impressed by its looks and features  and that all the 30 PCs of the lab were running Fedora 10 FEL  Live DVDs helped further. Sherry151 (Rangeen Basu Roy Chowdhury) showed them how to play  audio and video files. It was now 2:10 p.m. and everyone agreed to be back after a 40-minute break.

The programme resumed at 3 p.m. with sherry151 speaking about the IRC. Another few students joined us. Airtel Mobile Office being  internet connection  used, IRC clients like X-Chat, ChatZilla, etc. were not working and so, mibbit was used. The students were explained the use of IRC, shown how to join a channel, told about the etiquette they should maintain,etc. mbuf, shrink and roshan08 waved to the students.

Just as sherry151 was began his session on FEL, a power cut played the spoilsport! 😦 However, that did not dent his spirits and he went on with the students now surrounding him. Also, all the laptops present there were given to the students. Rangeen spoke about various the apps present lke Octave, KTechLab, etc.; drew a few simulations, showed some that were prepared beforehand, and even asked a student to create one.  About an hour into the session, electricity was back and everyone quickly switched on the PCs. They had not even boot when the power cut spoiled it all for the second time, damn! He also told the students various wasys by which they could contribute to FEL  like documentation, writing tutorials, etc. Sherry151’s session was very interesting and some students from the ECE Dept. turned up exclusively for that session.

It was about 4:30 p.m. and power supply had not resumed. Having consulted the students, it was decided that the rest of the sessions would be taken the next day, i.e. 15th of May, ’09.

Pics can be found here and here.