Saturday, August 29, 2009

End of the month

What an amazing month!!
I organized four workshops and one install-fest, did networking for Sensex simulation and learned a lot from seniors. I am planning to do some php and ajax next month. Ofcourse exams will be there till mid September but after that the actual study will begin :). I have to finish ajax to take part in IBM-TGMC, not to mention the release of linux store by yaps.co.in. I have to look after it too. And then another workshop is due on Drupal or Joomla on Software Freedom Day Eve.
Phew!! Lot of work to do so I am off 8)

Sunday, August 16, 2009

An Install Fest and The Three Workshops

First time in Birla Institute of Technology, we had an Linux Install Fest and that too featuring "Ubuntu 9.04 BIT-LUG Edition" modified for better user experience by ME :)
We also distributed Fedora11 original DVDs on install fest. We did more than 80 installations that day. A fair price to sacrifice a Sunday.



Workshop 1 & 2 : Date 10 Aug 2009.

This workshop was organized for newbies and especially for the fresher batch of our college. We started off by showing some cool compiz effects on fedora11 gnome. Even after attending the classes from 8:00 to 5:00, more than 60 people turned up, some out of enthusiasm others out of curiosity. We had some slides prepared by our volunteers. We showed them the alternatives of windows applications available for linux, like for media player we have rhythmbox. We also had some "Tux v/s Windows" fight videos. We told them about benefits of installing fedora (A distro which comprises every latest stuff and yet it is highly stable). All this made up an environment for the install fest which was scheduled the next day. We also invited feedbacks in the nd. Most of them were positive though some were a bit disappointed that we didn't bashed windows to a greater extent.


Install Fest : Date 11 August 2009
It was a holiday and yet one of the busiest day for us. We had permission to use the college lab. As we reached there, we found a couple of enthusiast already waiting for installation eagerly. We had a total of 7 volunteers and slightly above 80 installations. Fedora11 DVDs were also distributed for free. Since we have a local repository in our campus we thought it to be wise if we write a script for the installation of some common softwares and to add the local repositories. For desktops Debjit had arranged for network boot. The fest was a huge success as till date we have people who are approaching us after seeing the laptops on which we installed fedora on install fest.



Workshop 3 : Date 16 August 2009

This workshop was organized for more advanced users. We expected about 80-100 participants but we were astonished to see the rush. We had about 200 participants! So we decided to take the same workshop twice. We started off by telling basics of shell scripting and then made our way towards "Virtualization on Fedora". We had a little Question-Answer session after that. We also invited users to share their experiences with fedora. At the end we had a small slide show about "How to Contribute to Fedora Project". We had the sides made with the help of "join Fedora" page on wiki.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Understanding Linux Directory Structure

Understanding Linux file system is easy and crucial for every Linux user and programmer. First of all users should know this fact that for Linux everything is a file. And be everything I mean everything including your hard disk, mouse, even folder are also treated as a special kind of file. Every Linux consist of the following folders:-

  • / :It is the starting point of the file system. "/" contains everything. Every file and every folder. It is the parent drive of Linux. You will find every directory listed below in "/" even though they may be in some other drive.

  • /boot : It is place which contains your bootloader. It also has the linux kernel and initrd module which is loaded during the boot process and are crucial for booting the system. Remember "Don't Ever Mess With /boot" unless you are ready with backup

  • /bin : This folder has all the executable or binary files in it. It contains all the application programs and commands.

  • /dev : This folder is the device folder. It has a file corressponding to every device attached to your computer which includes hard disks, network cards, printers and other such devices.

  • /etc : This folder has all the configuration files. This folder defines that how your system will behave overall. It has user lists, skel which is copied into user's home every time a user is created, graphics configurations, network configurations and lots of other such stuff.

  • /home : Home folder is a place where the user normally gets in when he/she logs in. Its like a pesonal place where other users are not allowed to get it. A user gets a personal place at /home/user-name by default.

  • /lib : This folder contains library files which help in smooth working of applications. If you ever encounters dependencies problems while installing any software then this folder is guilty.

  • /proc : This directory basically represents the current state of your machine. It contains files corresponding to each process running on your computer.

  • /sbin : This folder also contains binary files but of special type. These files are to be executed only by superuser. It contains commands like shutdown and of course not every user can be entrusted with shutting down the system.
  • /usr : The /usr directory contains files and programs meant to be used by all of the users on the system. for example you will find program related to date there.