I added a new video on python list in dgplug tv.

I just uploaded couple of new videos at dgplug tv. You can find  ogg links in the right hand side. Videos include:

• How to upload files to your fedorapeople account (asked by mether :p)
• os.uname demo
• Tab completion in Python

THIS IS AN OLD POST , PUBLISHED NOW

"Fedora India" is not a person , it is the community including all Fedora users and contributors. Today I suddenly figured out that Kulbir Saini is using this in one of his blog. He is GSoC student this year.

We, the contributors from India have certain problems with this. Using the name "Fedora India" will give false impression to the world that this is from the community of India which is actually not. He is also using Fedora logo in his blog. And don't forget about the google ads.

To add more spice to it here is the declaimer from the site: "Copyright © 2008 Kulbir Saini. I am not related to Red Hat or Fedora Project. The content on this site is my own views." Now how can be it possible that his blog is in planet Fedora and he is not related to Fedora Project.

As I asked this in the list, his first reply was in personal, so I replied back cc:ed to the list also. It seems he loves to reply personally .

I hope the Fedora community will help us to keep the community name clean.

We started the summer training today :)

I thought of having at most 10 students, but in time more than 30 students were present in the room. Debarshi started talking classes on simple shell commands , he was too good :)  Then after dinner I took Vim class. We will continue everything tomorrow.

You can find chat logs here.

Tomorrow we will again starting from 7pm. pjp will start "C programming with gcc" from tomorrow 10:30pm.

Couple of days back I wrote about the Summer training programme from dgplug.

We got a pretty good response from the students, also few guys applied who are working in big MNC(s). The current list of the students:

* Amit Daga
* Amrita Mukherjee
* Aritra Bose
* Arpita Kapoor
* Bappy Modak
* Biswas Parajuli
* Chikan Banerjee
* Debashri Banerjee
* Deepak Kumar
* Harsh Verma
* Kishan Goyal
* Kumarjit Sen
* Mitesh Sharma
* Muralidhar Kamidi
* Partha Chowdhury
* Pramit Roychowdhury
* Rangeen Basu Roy Chowdhury
* Ratnadeep Debnath
* Ravi Jha
* Ria Das
* Rishi Kanth Alapati
* Roshan Kumar singh
* Rumpa Dey
* Samarjit Adhikari
* Sandeep Kumar
* Sayan Chakrabarti
* Shreyank Gupta
* Soumya
* Souvik Ray
* Srinwantu Dey
* Sumit Chakraborty
* Sunny Sharma
* Sushil Pandey
* T. Vignesh Prabhu
* Tanmaya Tewari
* Tanumoy Ghatak

You can find the course details here, the current plan is to have regular IRC based classes, plus long sessions on the weekends. Mbuf is going to start the course, he is going to discuss "Communication skills", "Free Software project guidelines", "Code cross-referencing tools". Hobbes agreed to take classes on Basic system administration. Svn will be taught by Pradeepto. Pjp agreed to go for "Basics of C programming using gcc", I am planning to take classes on Python if no one else comes up. But still we are missing guides for Vi and Wiki and all advance topics. I am asking help for volunteers to teach these tools. Classes are supposed to be of around 1-2 hour and alternative days (but all depends on trainer) in the night time in India (GMT + 5:30) over irc at #dgplug on freenode. At the end of the basic course, we are going to push the students to different FOSS projects on work on, may be starting with filling bug reports, sending patches, or documentation help. To all project developers/maintainers , if you want to get these newbies join your project, please come and give inspiration. Please mail me (kushal AT fedoraproject DOT org) so that I can arrange the schedule on irc. This is first time we are doing this ,thinking that this will help both the students and the community (to get them in the community) :)

I am looking forward for comments.

At last I am writing on my last trip to West Bengal, my home land. Was planning for the trip for quite a time as hand condition never looked cool.

First, after reaching Kolkata I visited the doctor. He checked my right arm and said it is improving and as I am not feeling anything or feeling too many things in my right arm , he asked me to wait for couple of years :( But most of the conversation with him went on "whether a girl with computer engineering degree is good as daughter-in-law or not", I think he is thinking a lot on that :p

Reached home on Saturday night 9 o clock. Again got up early next day morning and came back to Kolkata, after spending 2 days returned to Durgapur on Tuesday in a early morning bus. Directly went to my college, where I started talking with the juniors. The talks went as every time it did previously. Started explaining with what is GNU/Linux, what is Fedora to what is Free Software. Told them about various opportunities they can get while working on different projects. I saw little bit more interest this time than last time, dgplug poster was a clear hit :) So decided to do a Fedora install fest next day. As a lug our target is always to spread Linux, so directly installing it to the newbies' systems and fixing the problems they might get was a target this time. I took all updated RPMs from my lappy and desktop with me from Bangalore , Internet connection was/is the biggest problem with the students there. So , I distributed (actually was burning them) a DVD with a local repo full with my RPMs. I got many games and useful software there. After the collage ended I went to the local computer shop (same shop I use from 2001) to fix my broken desktop. It is P -IV box with 1GB RAM. Around 8pm at night I started feeling problems, fever came very fast with food poisoning and I skipped lunch in the afternoon as I was busy in talking with the students. Came back home around 10 at night, the first thing my father told me was not to go to Durgapur next day and to take some rest. But as I gave my word to those students I had to go. I believe the local coordinators are still missing the enthusiasm to do these kind of meetings. Took medicine and went to bed half dead :)

Next day morning was feeling far better than last night. Reached durgapur around 12. Started installations at around 1.30. We all were in a class room, around 4-5 laptops were present . Installations went very smooth. While doing installations I kept talking on various points to them. The students also asked many questions. Showed them python :) After the installations they learned how to use yum. They copied my local repo and also burned it so that they can give them to their friends. I tried to make the event less formal , tried to make connections personally with these guys as they have the capabilities to become potential contributors. I found having the personal touch with the students really help to convert them into active contributors from simple users. It was a very nice experience :) After everything finished, went back home. My home/village is around 1.5hours aways from the city of Durgapur.

Last 2 days I spent to present some introductory talks in NITDGP or BCET. You can read more about that here.

Last couple of days I saw some mails in my college mailing about summer trainings offered by various training companies. In my personal experience of the meeting the students who attended these trainings, most of them are with void knowledge after the training. The companies will just take the money from the students and they will provide the certificates no matter the students attend the classes or not.

After thinking on this I thought of going ahead to provide a summer training course at dgplug. You can find the course structure here. As the local lug from Durgapur , we are trying to catch students from different colleges in the locality. The main target behind the course is simple , after finishing, the students must be capable of working on different Free Software projects. All classes will be on IRC :) I already got couple of applications.

So, if you want to learn some cool technologies and want to make the world a better place, apply now. Seats are limited. Hurry !!

I am trying to make this , thanks to Vivek Khurana for the design and css. I messed up few videos I had, so wait for couple of weeks to get it ready.

Tomorrow I am going back home :) So, almost no internet for next one week. my first task in the todo list is to visit my doctor as the right arm is still not in good shape.

Next week I am going to move around in few engineering collages in the locality , will be giving talks on dgplug , and Fedora. I am also going to visit Bijra. I don't remember if I posted this link before or not.

My target is to get some more contributors. Congratulations to Soumya for joining the team. I am sure he is going to be a good recruit (he is still waiting for his net connection ).

This blog entry is a continuation of Soumya's entry.

When I started Linux User Group of Durgapur (dgplug) , the main idea was very simple , learn and teach others. By saying teach others I meant teach your fellow class mates or juniors or sometimes the seniors also. Soumya started working with me almost from the beginning. After I came to Bangalore for job , he took all charges in Durgapur. He tried to get few juniors to whom we could give the batons for the coming years. But suddenly we are feeling that those guys also left the collage sooner than we expected.

It is always good to see people working on the upstream projects, but for that completely forgetting the base is not good as I think. Our motto is "Learn yourself and teach others" but they made it "learn and don't teach others".

Maintaining a LUG from 2000km apart is not easy. I had to spent a lot on my phone bill to do so as Internet is not an option for most of my lug guys. I used to call them and explained over phone different technical stuffs. Again I started doing so as the local guys are not at all interested in helping peers. Basic rule is still same: give them software, tell them how to install , tell them to how to use them. Being a Fedora Ambassador I believe that is helping me to make a larger user-base. I got few more people into Ambassador project and thought they will keep the good things going. But it seems they are only using that identity while asking leaves from the collage authority :(

In the same time I had opposite kind of experiences too. Ramu , who is a colleague of mine is doing nice work. Today Prashad is also agreed to join the team :)

For me getting new users is more important than new developers as if users grow, the developers will grow automatically (my personal opinion). In last night I am being able to help a new dgplug member to successfully using IRC, Inkscape (as she is an artist), python and create a new blog for her. Today I found she went to her other friends and then introduced them to the same technologies and they are on to it. It is always fun to see them playing with these new tools :)

But the whole thing sometimes looks like an educational institute, new people -> they learn -> they get jobs -> they forget about the institute !!

We will keep trying to get new people, tell them the nice things from the Free Software World. I am going to West Bengal in March to visit my doctor as the right arm is not in good shape (I can not feel anything in few parts of it). During my staying I will try to spend as much time as I can with these new comers, will try to spread the message that dgplug is just not another website or just few people, it is a personal relationship which help us in every ways of life.........

Created a dgplug poster.