15th May, 2009, Day 2, DGPLUG FAD in Dr. B. C. Roy Engineering College, Durgapur.
It was around 11:30 AM, that we started the 2nd Day of FAD. The number of participants were less than the Day 1, it was around 15, but we could see some new faces. The ECE students couldn’t join because they had their internals and Lab Examinations the very same day. We started the day with some cool videos from tv.dgplug.org on Okular, KSnapshot, Packagekit, etc.
It was followed by a session on basic shell commands by Harsh Verma (yevlempy). He showed to the participants the usage of basic shell commands like cp, mv, rm, … and others. Arindam Ghosh gave a nice intro on the FHS, i.e, File Hierarchy System of Linux systems. The students simultaneously tried the shell commands being taught in their respective terminals. Then Arindam and Subhodip started speaking on the execution rights and thus the chmod command. They lucidly explained the features of chmod and how to use it. Then they explained to the students that it is because of the Linux way of file permissions that Linux is very secure against viruses. They also laid stress on the evils of Graphical root login and told that they can always use the terminal for root access while logged in as normal user to do administrative tasks. They also said why to learn using the command line.
Then I ( rtnpro) took on the how to install softwares in Fedora via the YUM package manager and Package-kit. I configured the system being used for the presentation to use the Fedora 10 repository in my Pocket Hard-drive … I call it Mirror-in-a-Disk , he..he.. 
. Then Subhodip explained what is a repository, and the details of /etc/yum.repos.d/ and the details in the *.repo files. Then I showed them how to install softwares via YUM and its other options like search, grouplist, groupinstall, update, etc. Then I also showed how to install packages via the Package-Kit.
It was followed by a session on the Vi Text Editor by Dibyanshu Jaiswal. He explained to the students the basics of the Vi text editor and some advanced features of it. In between, Subhodip and Arindam setup a local mirror in a computer Lab 207 to cater to the local needs for installing packages in BCREC. Other text editors like Gedit and Kwrite were also showed. Then there was a break.
After a 30 minute break, I started taking on a session on GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection. Just as I started the session, I saw some new faces showing up. It was welcoming. I also showed them how to use google search and wikipedia to find information. For this I myself did a wkipedia search on GCC and showed it to them. Its so easy to get info
. In between Arindam and Subhodip kept on explaining on what needed more explanation to make these new topics clear. I told the basic do’s and dont’s in gcc like avoiding conio.h, using int main in place of void main. I started with the classic Hello World program and introduced to them-c, -x, -std, -o, -lm and -I options of GCC. Then we did some class assignments like the Fibonacci series. I showed them a c program involving command line arguments. There were some wonder moments during the c drills. A girl practised so much Python lately that she was typing Python code in place of c code. Here, have a look. Then Arindam and Subhodip introduced the Anjuta IDE to the students. The students who were finding the command line hard found it interesting.
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. He also showed them his GSoC JOSM project work, which he developed using Java. Having distributed Fedora 10 DVDs, Fedora 10 FEL Live DVDs, and stickers, we called it a day at 5:45 p.m.
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