The beautiful Vythiri

It was really a great chance to attend the National Service Scheme Camp organised at Vuthri by the juniors. Making the arena for another get together with the juniors who were always the embodiment of grt friendship.

The team

Rakesh, Kiren, Thomson, Sajeev and Dhanraj sir

We reached the camp site early morning on Saturday. This was my third NSS camp. I still remember the beautiful memories of my frist NSS camp which Pattambi’s team conducted. ( I would love to see someone writing about all days of the camp like this for this camp too)

Haridas entertaining the camp members — from Anakkampoyil camp

‘Special Group’

They showed us the results of many days hard work with enthusiasm and satisfaction. It gives you a lot of satiafaction when you know that you have made a difference to somebody’s life. Even to go to a hospital they had no transport available as the road was not motorable. Now they can avail transport.

/me having a look at the progress, Jayakumar sir is seen explaining

The people there prepared tapioca snacks for us.

Having a break

The finishing touch- Geo

After the work we had bath in the river near by. Then we had delicious lunch. After the hardowork the luch always is very tasty. We missed Kunchiramettan – he used to cook for all the camps, he could not come this time because he was not feeling well. He used to tell us the experiences of the previous camps. He was there at the time of Rajan [He was a student of REC Calicut and was (believed to be ) murdered by Police during the days of Emergency ]. Even now people know REC (now NIT) as Rajan’s college. We have our cultural festival Ragam named after him. Last time he told us about his experience with Rajan. Rajan was good actor and he was coming back from a perfomance with Kunchiramettan when poilice caught him. To juniors you missed Kunchiramettan this time.

Kunchiramettan at Anakkampoyil camp

We were preparing for the Camp Fire after lunch. The campfire is for my third time and it was wonderful each time. It was filled with Folk songs (original – by the camp members and other popular numbers) and film songs.

The camp fire — Prashob is seen in full swing

Camp fire

Folk song moment.

The Fire

After the campfire there was camp evaluation. Hey folks you did a wonderful job. Congratulations. There has to be suggestions for better camp next time. It is very necessary, otherwise you would feel complacent. Every time you should think how to make the next one better. We also gone through this phase. Take the suggestions to make the next camp even a better one.

Me at the worksite

We were in a confusion whether we should stay for the trekking too. But we decided to go for trekking. We climbed the Chembara peak, the second highest peak after Anamudi. It was a wonderful experience [Still the wound I got from a leech bite not cured ]. We left the campsite by 9 and reached the top by 11.30.

For more photos see the nss website
I’ll update the trekking photos after I’m back from X mass holidays.

Merry Christmass and Happy New Year to all.

I’m back to blogsphere after a long break. There has been lotta things going on here in NITC. There was a class trip to Kodaikanal (it is in my draft and hope’ll be able to see it once I get the photos), NSS farewell, treat, Trical treats, lotta new distros ……..

A much awaited new and improved Open Office is soon to be released. I tried the beta version and it has much to offer than the previous editions. [I heard that Redhat was successful to compile OOo with gnu tools for java -- so hopefully we could see an uncrippled version of OOo with Fedora core 4]

Read Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community

Several new features of the recently released OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta require a Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Since Java’s license is neither free nor open source, a small but vocal minority has responded both strongly and negatively. For instance, when NewsForge recently published a review of the beta, no other feature attracted as much comment. Some groups, including members of the major GNU/Linux distributions, most of whom repackage OpenOffice.org (OOo), have responded by looking for alternatives, often while cursing the project for the extra work it has dumped on them. How did OpenOffice.org come to rely on Java? What problems is it likely to cause? How are GNU/Linux distributions reacting to this change in a key piece of software?

Some questions which the author Bruce Byfield tried to ansewr are

Bruce Byfield is a freelance course designer and instructor and a technical journalist.
Read Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community

The debate continues… and Suse 9.3 scheduled to be out by Mid-April will include OOo 2.0 preview with java.

Update:
Making the leap: Microsoft Word to OpenOffice.org Writer
Wednesday April 20, 2005 (09:00 AM GMT)
By: Jem Matzan

I have tried the new version of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distro and also the kubuntu version of it. It clearly shows why GNOME rocks!! [Ugly fonts with no anti-aliasing by default and occatiopnal crashes of konqueror, no cdrdao for k3b -- so you cannot burn cds!! -- the KDE woes continues. But I agree with the KDE fans that there are lots of KDE applications out there but the look and feel is not comparable to Gnome]

The interesting new additions to the Ubuntu are Gnome 2.10 and KDE 3.4. Gnome comes with default bit torrent client now and the menus are more comprehensive [for example the modem dialer menu]. KDE features an RSS reader.

Then the exam season to be over soon. Night outs have become a necessity since whole semester had to be mugged-up in a day. I just want to clear all the papers. The next exam is ANN (Artificail Neural Networks)
bye

It goes like this

On the FSF Friends mailing list, a few hours ago, Praveen A, has posted his experience on doing exactly what the panel at LinuxWorld stressed upon – taking Linux to schools – and with the advantage of a neutral courseware.

The books for Class 8th, 9th and 10th for the IT@School program in Kerala have the word GNU/Linux sprinkled everywhere. But when Praveen went to a nearby school for organizing a workshop for the teachers he learnt something that is all familiar – the higher authorities try to avoid Linux by instructing the teachers to only teach Windows.

Praveen, for one, has decided to coach the willing teachers dueing the school vacation. Although it’s a start it’s not a solution in itself. There are larger issues as well as larger people to convince.

Read the full story

He wrote this after reading my posts to fsf-friends mailing list, the principal mailing list of Free Software Foundation of India

First mail

I got a chance to go through the text books of 8, 9 and 10th
standard for IT @ School programme [Kerala]. I was very happy to see GNU/Linux
every where with equal or more importance than windows. The book
covers all basic functions like word processing, graphics processing
… But the fact is different from the text books.
…………………..

Second mail
I have got a chance to train the teachers of the nearby [NIT
Calicut, where I'm doing Btech] higher secondary school for IT @
school as part of NSS programme. In Kerala we have succeeded in
including the GNU/Linux as an alternative to M$ non-free OS, but the
most schools stick to Window$ because they didn’t get any training in
the free OS. Yeasterday I showed them the Redhat’s GNU system, they
were seeing it for the first time
…………………….

The story is based on my experience in teaching teachers in nearby school (REC GVHSS )

First post
It was a great experience to be a teacher when the students are teachers !!!! We became teachers and the teachers of REC GVHSS became our students. We started out training programme by NSS today with a positive note. Both enjoyed it and we are looking forward to the next class. It will have to be after the sessionals. First one of them introdused us to the others. Today Jas (Jithu from s4 CSE, others with me were Bipin and Sree Kumar, both from s4, the former being compsci and the latter ece) started withe the basics of computers from Von Neumann model. We were a bit anxious as to how teachers might feel about the technical stuff we are gonna present. At some points of the class we were worried about the reaction from teachers. All our worries (and theirs were over when I instructed Jas to show how to login. Then we just helped them with the usage, whatever they asked we just helped them do. Some wanted to customise the desktop, some wanted to know how to search for more material on eye in the net, some others wanted to know how to open cds and burn cds, and on and on ….
…………………

Second post

And the rest I don’t know how Shyam manged it, because I had to go to the REC Higher Secondary School to train the teachers as part of the NSS programme. Today I gave them an introduction to GNU/Linux and many were seeing it for the first time ! [though the syllabus has given same weight to the free and M$ OS]. I showed them how to choose linux from lilo and then to login with the login name ‘guest’
…………….

So I was late by 10 minutes to the class. I asked Dhanya mam permission to enter tthe class and she said no. So I stood outside the class. KSK also was there with me and he also tried to enter the class she said no but he did enter, so does Tijo who came after me. It made me very angry so I thought I’d do something about it. I started walking to-and-from outside the class with economics notebook. Everyone in the class was looking me and laughing but I kept walking till the hour ended.

Economics is the only suject that is interesting this sem [I bunked a lot of classes of ANN and I cannot say about it now]. The reason is that you can relate it to your daily life and you never feel alien in the class even if you bunk a lot [I never bunked any Thursady or Friday untill recently, now no descrination for any subject or teacher or day of week for bunking the main reason was Dhanya mams class. Even thought I used to bunk 4 hours continuosly and I can count the attended first hours on my fingers I rarely bunked friday first hour]. Also Dhanya mams class was interesting because we had nice discussions [economics and non-economics topics] and you never feel bored.

[Some people who don't like discussions and like the convensional way of teaching may disagree with me. ATM sir's and Unnikrishnan sir's classes were also intersting because they discuss general things in the class. Only one class of Suresh Kumar sir I still remember as the interesting class. That class he discussed about books, Someset Maugham.... And I still remeber dilpu asking Suresh Kumar sir to discuss general things evry other day]

After my seminar and discussions with Tojin and after listening to the talk by Dr. KP Aravindan I was keen to have a discussion on patents too. All this made me protest to the injustice or whatever be it. After the hour was over [Even I have contempt with mysself and I stood there in the morning sun] when mam came out [KSK called me in between but I didn't mind], I smiled and said good morning mam and entered the class and everybody welcomed me with a clap and ofcourse with different responses.

Shanker told I was scratching mam, Tojin told I am craving for attention, Ugen congratulated me Frank admired my act and Shrini told me ‘Isn’t that for blog ?’. Well, all coments are welcome. Gandhi once said ‘Everything you do may be insignificant but it is important that you do it’. Also I feel perplexed after started writing blog ‘Is I am doing thing to write in blog ?’ Anyway I look at things now with a diffrent perspective, from a repotrer’s perspective.

In the night I had discussions with Pramod KC on a variety of topics which included this act and patents and democracy, NSS [of course ] and what not ?

Feel free to comment on it.

Well lets come back to the seminar. Anyway there is a lot of active and vibrant and heated debates going on in Tricalzone in different topics like Free Software, Economics, Music, Films, history, religion…..

I woke up by 8.30 [First hour was free today] and was there before the teacher came to the class [I'd have missed attendence if I was late -- many didn't get attendence because they were late -- she noticed evryone and even sent people back who came late after 10 minutes].

I went to the platform and cleared the blackboard and took a choke from the table. I started reading from the paper. It was a hypthetical petition filed by Candle maker to the chamber of deputies to pass a law to keep all the windows and openings closed to keep their business profitable. The topic I got is very interesting and after the starting trouble I had a nice time discussing the arguments in favour of protection. There was no questions at all [Well I didn't think of it too]. I felt relieved after it was over. Then Dhanya mam briefed the points of Free Trade and Protection and we had a live discussion there. There has been some arguments from Frank about the definition of dumping too.

Then me Habeeb and Tojin prepared a petition and went to meet Pdma Kumari mam. It was concerning the project evaluation and class treat … Next week we have sessional exams and after that we are going for a class trip to Munnar and Kodaikanal. It is going to be a really memorable class trip [last time we went to Ooty and only mallies were present that time, this time we ahve whole of tricalzone out there See the photos of the Ooty Trip].

Today seems very interesting day for me in the whole 4 years [A lot can 'also' in a day]. I went to the lab to do some project work [infact first time willingly and doing so
me stuff -- at leat I read through the manual and found out the connections for opamp as a amplifier [we are used AD817 for our experiment -- MS told it is a high fund thing and we don't need that much, even in US people don't use these . It could operate upto 3 Mhz ]

Then I attended NSS meeting on 5 O’clock. This time second years also came for the meeting. We discussed about the future activities of NSS and the role to be played by the Juniors. They are getting increased responsibilty as it has become an independant cell after delinking from the state cell. It has become 9th university cell in Kerla. Now we are directly under the MHRD. It is very heartening to see that lots of Juniors are interested in NSS now and I hope even after we leave here NSS will be here actively [The worry is attributed to it being an NIT, when we joined it was REC -- and we can say we are the last REC batch, since we follwed the old system even after we became NIT, of course there is change the way old things are done now, but the real NIT batch started from our junior batch.] I appealed to them to consider the spirit of NSS as their first motive and not to just give 75 hours to the 2nd years. [Another change NIT brought to NSS is that it is now a compulsory credit course for one year during their second year course. Without NSS credit they won’t get a Btech certificate. (It may seem ironical to look at it as ‘compulsory volunteers’. In fact it is the old CSS (Compulsory social service) to be taken up by NSS. We had lots of debates at the inial period and now we see some advatages to the new system. It gives them a chance now.)

Then I went to the talk by Dr. K.P. Aravindan of Calicut Mediacl college and a KSSP (Kerala Sastra Sahtya Parishad ) activist conducted by Sanskriti on New Patent law and its impact on the society. Well I’m gonna write a separate entry for it. Also I’ll publish those notices put up by Sanskriti in our campus.
Series 1

It was a wonderful day altogether a lot of things in one day. Not yet the feeling that I ‘m leaving this campus which was my home the last 4 years is not sinked in my mind. The nostalgic feelings are coming. The good old CC with dumb monochrome terminals, the A mess, Ragam and the Ganja incident,NSS camps …..
Stoping now.

we met on Friday evening and discussed the plans and documents and other things to be taken along with. we planned to start our journey by 6am on Saturday. I woke up on Saturday morning by 5am and was ready by 6am. After having break fast from calicut we resumed journey. We were not sure of the exact location of the college, we had to stop in place and enquire about the college, we had to board the bus again and resume journey after realizing that the place is not reached. There was a welcome board and we reached Akkikavu by 10am. We met Shri. K.U. Unnimohiyudheen, Joint director of Technical Education and father of my classmate Muneer. Still there was 2 km to go to reach the college. We started walking and caught college bus in between and reached our destination — Royal College of Engineering and Technology.

I met Sophia and Shameer of Govt. Poly Palakkad whom I met during last Annual meet in TKM. We registered our units and the programme started with flag hoisting by 10.30am. the inaugural session started at 11am. There are 71 institutions under the technical cell of which 16 engineering colleges and 43 polytechnics. The welcome address was by Shri. K.A. Kalith, the programme co-ordinator of NSS technical cell. He stressed on the theme of NSS ‘Youth for Swatchhatha’.
The inaugural address was by Prof. S.K. Mohan who is the director of Technical education. He was former HOD of Computer Science Department of GEC Thrissur. Then the talk by Shri. K. Rajendran, asst. Programme adviser, NSS regional centre, Thiruvananthapuram was very inspiring and sought introspection from all the audience. These are some points he stressed. NSS is the largest youth movement of Asia, it has 24 lakh volunteers across India which is spanned across 9000 institutions. the number of voluneers when we started was 40,000. Purpose of Education is to prepare one to face the challenges of life and today many have the knowledge and information but lack skill and technique for life. the skills neaded for life include communication skills, personality and maintenance of relation ships. NSS gives proper linkage of institutions with the community. It gives a chance to do some service and develop personality. Once we move out of the campus, what we need is boldness and courage to face the challenges of life. He said that the government is least bothered about how much money is spent but it is bothered about how much minds are cleaned. Gone are the days NSS meant only cleaning, of course we do cleaning, but we learn problems of people and show concern, compassion and care. It is time to elevate the status on NSS. We do cleaning to teach people. Also he had some grievences on the curent setup of NSS. According to him the entire amount alotted for regular activities are not spent on regular activities. Also he invited proposals for national levl programmes.

The next talk was by Prof. P.K. Muhammed, Co-ordinator, NSS TOC, Kalamassery. He is a renowned Ghandian. According to him the mission of NSS is to prepare a group of leaders with deep rooted social value. Man behaves in the service of need and it is known as primitive communism. In those days there was only limited needs and there was equality in happiness. With the beginning of agriculture the inequalities started. When we started producing more than what needed, need was given way to greed and inequality in happiness was started there. Now it is more apt to say Man behaves in the service of greed. Competition has started and now there is no time for co-operation. Science is amoral and a political. Look at the history of man and we see the discoveries of destruction. And he quotes from Young world 1923 edition where Ghandiji wrote, science without humanity is not good. Then he goes o, technology is the art of making tools. Code of Hammurabi about 4000 years ago was first of its kind. He urged for professionals with social consciousness. He reminded us that our life is not for us alone. Not me alone but you also. [The same thing I sill remembers as he said it last time in TKM]

Then spoke (inaugural address) Prof. S.K Mohan, Director of technical education. He was HOD of CS deptment in GEC thrissur and principal of CET. He reminded us that society is spending a lot on us and make sure we know our responsibilty to the society.

Then the session entered to the next part, distribution of awards.
Govt. women’s polytechnic Calicut was given the award of the best NSS unit and Shri. Moosa Palakkal (of the same poly) was recognised as the best programme officer.
It was shared by IPT & Govt Polytechnic Palakkad and programme officer K.T. George.
Shameer of GPTC Palakkad and Sreeja from TCM central polytechnic was selected as the best volunteers.
Also T. Vijina of Calicut Poly, Anoop K das of Govt poly Thiroorangadi, Shanker Mohan of Swami Nithyananda Poly technic got special mentions.
Others who spoke at the event are
Shri P. Alassankutty, NSS state liaison officer
Shri Kurien Koshy Sr. Joint Direcr of Technical Education
Shri K.U. Unnimohiyudheen, joint director of technical education
Shri. KE Ashraf, MD, RCET
Dr. T.V. George, CE, RCET
Shri. Bhaskaran Pallikara, PTA president
Shri. C. Velapan, regional liason officer
Shri. Binil K Benny, Chairman Students Union RCET

and the vote of Thanks was given by the Principal of RCET Dr. M.K. Balakrishnan Nair.

Now there is a lot to write about the different session which was very interesting.

The main thing I value about it is the friends I got from it. It was my third annual meet, the first one as a host and second one in TKM college of Engineering last year. I met some of my friends I got during the last meet.

There was different sessions or classes on leadership skills and personality development. I enjoyed every session of it. Then we had a jauntis awareness programme in which we went to each home near the college where the meet is organised (Royal college of Engineering and Technology RCET, Akkikavu, Thrissur — a one year old self financing college) and gave notices with details about the desease and ways against the spreading of the disease. One activity we took part during this is chlorination of the water bodies there [One of the effective ways of distroying the virus is super chlorination].

Today we [NSS family at NIT C] had our cultural programme Garland. It is a platform to showcase the various unique cultural and art forms of different parts of our country. We are very lucky to be in this college where we can mingle with persons from every part of India and get a feeling of the ‘Unity in diversity’ — the principle that bonds all of us together.

Today the first years had the chance to present their unique cultural feasts to the entire college. It was regularly conducted before and then it was not there last two years [Last time it was there was when we were freshers]. It had colurful dances like Garba or Gujarat, Thiruvathirakkali of Kerala … Bangada dance from Panjab got everyone dancing with the tunes. The programme was superb but sometimes the response from the audience was not good. I think we are losing tolerance and a mind to appreciate good of others.
[I'll be posting the photos soon. Update:Photos posted]

The only drawback was that, the entire hall was filled and many didn’t get a seat to sit and we had to bring more chairs. Actually we booked the Aryabhata hall [The largest of the three halls of the New Lecture Complex] but since our Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is visiting our college tomorrow and the hall was arranged for that [The police security check was over and it was locked]. [He is coming to our college to lay the foundation stone to the new Computer complex.]

Also this Saturday and Sunday there is Annual meet of NSS and we’ll be leaving for the programme on Saturday morning. This is my third consecutive Annual meet, the first one as a host and the second one last time in TKM Engg college Kollam and this time it is going to be in Royal Engg College Thrissur.

View the co
mplete Photos of Garland 2005

Update:Got another tricalzone blogger [my future colleage] Praveen Kumar VR

The installer was staright forward and the first challenge was when it wanted a primary partition to install. [So we used our knowledge about partitions and created a primary partition with Partition magic, first we deleted the last partition of the logical partition and then resized the logical and the free space is formatted as a primary partition]. The installation was done nicely [and it had a screensaver during installation !!! and we could use mouse in the text installer !!!!]

The next challenge was to mount Windows partitions

The way BSD recognise a harddisk [ad0s1,2... ]is different from how GNU/Linux [hda1,2...] recognises it.
Luckily when we did a df from the live cd it showed all the /dev files for the partitions [The live cd didn't have any entry in /etc/fstab file !]
The windows primary was ad0s1 and the FreeSBIE primary was ad0s3 and the logical partitions in it as ad0s3a,b…
so we guessed the windows partition to be ad0s2a,b… and configured /etc/fstab

and the result ????
The system refuced to boot and and gave a /bin/sh shell !!! and vi didn’t work and we were helpless but we found out a way:-)
We inserted the live cd and found out the fstab file and commented the newly added windows partitons part and tried to save , alas !!! the partition was mounted read-only, what could we do ? we unmounted the ufs filesystem (which is the BSD filesystem) and mounted it with write option
mount -o rw /dev/ad0s2a /mnt/ufs.1
we commented the new lines and rebooted to the harddisk. It worked and greeted with the nice xfce splash screen:-)

Again we tried to mount the partitions

we found that the filesystem for fat32 was not vfat but msdosfs in BSD.

It was successfully mounted and then sound was not coming !!!
we changed the fstab again and rebooted !!!
‘Mr. Shanker is again on the coconut tree’ !!!
It gave us an ugly /bin/sh

And the rest I don’t know how Shyam manged it, because I had to go to the REC Higher Secondary School to train the teachers as part of the NSS programme. Today I gave them an introduction to GNU/Linux and many were seeing it for the first time ! [though the syllabus has given same weight to the free and M$ OS]. I showed them how to choose linux from lilo and then to login with the login name ‘guest’
Then the start menu and showed them gedit, calculator …. and they wanted to learn gimp more and then we had a nice time with gimp. I showed them how to add text, how to change the foreground color, how to use the tools and how to created layer and copy paste from another image ……
Note:See Swaroop’s 7th standard sister’s drawing using gimp
Grokking the Gimp — a complete book to learn The GIMP

Now I’ve to go and check how Shyam managed with FreeSBIE

But I was not satified then, I was looking for GNU stuff. I stopped grub from booting directly to window$ 98 and booted to Redhat GNU/Linux 9 with kernel 2.4. But it wasn’t easy as no one ever used it and they didn’t knew the password. But it was a simple thingfor me, I just rebooted to the single user mode and removed the root password !!! and added a guest user with no password. Also I changed the timout from 10 second to a minute before booting. Now I’ve to help them shed their fear about GNU/linux. Some of the teachers are interested in GNU/Linux others don’t care what it is. We are gonna prepare the slides in Open Office and we’ll stress on GNU/Linux [there is no point in recruiting for M$]. Juniors were impressed and now they’ll be trying it on their friends’ comps [the single user thing]. So every hackers out there, this is a big and effective chance for us to spread the word of GNU to the masses,

>>>>>>> GO TO SCHOOLS !!! >>>>>>

[Many a teacher complaint that nobody teach them GNU/Linux. Rajagopaln sir briefed the other day about a plan to help teachers in schools]

After the session, which we started by 4 and ended by 6.30. We had tea in canteen and discussed the general situation and now we have to prepare according to their feedbacks. It was a really a wonderfull experience.

I have not buncked any hour today or yesterday. Infact Thursday and Friday I have full attendence. It seems it takes three days more for me to finish the weekend . Also today we send the NSS programme reports and our contribution towards Prime Minister’s relief fund and mainly camp report. Oh! I got another pack of 10 ubuntu today cds [It is free in every meaning, free as in freedom as well as free as in free lunch -just order your cds at their site (this is my second pack, I already got 20 cds at home ]. then we have a 3 hour Charlie Chaplin movie show as part of ‘Mental Relaxation’. It is going on, but I didn’t go [As I felt relaxed after a nice sssion with GVHSS teachers]. Now I feel that, after all, ‘all those hours spent in cc is not that waste’, someone is gaining from my loss [whatever you gain something else you lose as someone said].

It has been very long and I guess your boredom is over. Thanks for reading this.

After the class me and KSK[Kiren SK] went to meet Jaikumar sir to discuss NSS programmes. He went to meet project guide and I went with Shankar, Tojin and MS to meet Suresh Kumar Sir [He is the best teacher our department has got and arguably one of the best in our college or even absolutely, and I have manged to write his two subjects two times ], our project guide. Diplu could not come because of a cycle accedent. He fell down from a cycle and it’s not serious but manged with some three or four wounds. We started with discussion of our project and we moved to various other topics. We discussed about books and softwares. He told he was convinced about the need of Free software and its importance. He was in doubt about the violation of law made every day. He pointed out the software piracy and its implications. We are trying hard to bring him to the Free Software community. He pledged his support for our efforts to spread the message of Software Freedom.
He discussed about the book reviews and his plan to write a book.

Then I mailed some Firefox tips to some of the free software groups. We are moving ahead with our palns for FOSS conference on Jan 29. Today we’ve Birthady treats of Karthik and Titto.

Bye then
Signing off