INTERNET, TECH SKILLS GROWING QUIETLY IN GOA
PANJIM, April 30: Goa's BSNL internet service provider is
already providing some 3000 broadband connections in the
state, and roughly another 24,000 people dial-up to get
access the Net using this central government-run service.
These figures emerged during an informal discussion at the
monthly meeting of the India Linux Users Group (Goa), a
network promoting Free Software and Open Source in the state.
ILUG-Goa, which holds its meetings usually on the fourth
Saturday of each month at the Goa Science Centre at Miramar,
sees a range of tech issues -- usually directly related to
Free Software and Open Source in Goa.
During it's meet on April 29, a range of issues came up for
discussion, from how to partition your hard-disk (to install
GNU/Linux side-by-side with Windows), to software tools to
ehance productivity, and various internet and broadband
options available to users in diverse parts of Goa.
For instance, there are some useful Free Software tools to
monitor your bandwidth usage on BSNL's broadband. One such
tool is available for free download at
http://tinyurl.com/qgu9p
Called the Data One Broadband Statistics, this is a
screen-scraper written using Perl to download usage
statistics of BSNL's Data One
(www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone.htm) broadband service and
total it.
Generally, BSNL (www.bsnl.co.in) allows only the
Microsoft-based IE and has no monthly total. But trust Indian
software talent to find a work-around. This solution comes
from the Free Software/Open Source network in Chennai.
Meanwhile, the Goa free software network stays connected and
announces its event via http://iluggoaannounce.notlong.com
There are no fees for joining, all are welcome, and
encouraged to form parallel user-groups in diverse parts of
the state.
Meanwhile, the Fedora Core 5 Free Software distribution has
just become available on DVD in Goa. Number of foreign
magazines are also available. Members of ILUG-Goa such as
engineer Bijon Shaha and software pro Arvind Yadav gave
diverse views on techies-only distros like 'Gentoo'.
Debopriyo 'DP' Sarkar pointed to a 'mindmap' of various Free
Software distributions or 'distros' available, which was
illustrated at linuxhelp.blogspot.com
Earlier, there was a brief presentation on FreeMind.
FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in
Java. It has the potential of playing the role of a high
productivity tool. Operation and navigation of FreeMind is
faster because of one-click "fold/unfold" and "follow link"
operations.
Other members raised a range of issues -- from how to get
started in GNU/Linux, to playing around with tools like
StumbleUpon, and how to encourage Free Software usage in
schools and educational institutions.
Remy Furtado of Rosary College, Navelim expressed an interest
in working on the Free Software tool Moodle, ideal for
distance education, as the Goa University moves to a pattern
of semisterisation. Goa Engineering College's Prof George
Easaw has done work on this platform, as have others.
Reacting unofficially, BSNL officials said Goa now had six
STMS 155 MBps connectivity, which was resulting in a speedy
expansion of broadband to many parts of the state.
But for broadband facilities to become available in village
areas, at least 60 subscribers were needed to make operations
viable.
So far, broadband from BSNL is available in a growing number
of areas in Goa: Panjim, Vasco (except Cortalim, but
including Sada, Mangor, Bogmalo, Sancoale and other areas),
Ponda, Bambolim, Merces, Dona Paula, Porvorim, Mapusa town,
Calangute-Candolim, and Saligao, among others.
Equipment has already been installed in Aldona exchange, and
broadband facilities are expected to go functional
--
-------------------------------------------------------------
| India Linux Users' Group, Goa |
| Join the friendly user group |
| Mail list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/join |
---------------------------------------------------------- |
| http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teach-yourself-linux |
| http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa-announce |
| http://www.iosn.net/country/india/organizations/ilug-goa/ |
-------------------------------------------------------------
, ,
/ \ .-. * SOFTWARE
((__-^^-,-^^-__)) (. .) * FREEDOM
`-_---' `---_-' / V \ * SHARING
`--|o` 'o|--' // \\
\ ` / /( )\ KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
): :( '.^^_^^.' SHARE IT EQUITABLY
:o_o: \_/ \_/
"-"
===========================================
LINUXForYou * Dec 2003 (Vol 1 No 10)
In India Rs 50 (with CD)
http://www.linuxforu.com
Pages 102 * US$7.95 0 74470584957
===========================================
THIS ISSUE has probably reached your city. Saw it in Bangalore, and also got
a complimentary copy from the LFY team at LinuxBangalore2003. But when I
reached back to Goa on Dec 4, it wasn't in as yet. So it might take time to
reach 'small town' India... FN
REVIEWED: Mandrake 9.2 * PhProjekt * StarOffice 7.0
COMPUTERS AT TIS HAZARI, the session courts for the city of New Delhi, are
being shifted over to Linux, courtesy the National Informatics Centre. -
Rahul Chopra in this month's editorial.
LINUX LEARNING CENTRE at Bangalore is offering courses
in administration, security, development (internals and
programming essentials, programming with Qt, device
driver programming, MySQL & PHP), RHCE and Red Hat
rapid track certification. www.linuxlearningcentre.com
DotGNU RELEASES CD: It can now be used to implement application programs and
Web services in C# and C applications under multiple operating systems,
including GNU/Linux, FreeBSC, MacOS, MS Windows. The 219 MB release 0.1 CD
is available as a free download at
http://download.freedom.biz/dotgnu/dotgnu-0.1-cdrom.iso.gz.torrent
e-Bridge calls itself "the new state-of-art training
facility from eSpark Infotech is now open in the
heart of Bangalore". It's offering embedded Linux courses
(Linux fundamentals, programming Linux, embedded C & Linux,
realtime C & Linux, Linux internals, device drivers,
networking) and DSP courses (DSP fundamentals, TI/analog
dev programming, audio/video, image processing,
bio-medical systems). www.ebridgesolutions.netLinux.net provides a free e-mail service to those who want an e-mail address
that ends in '@linux.net'
MAJOR UPDATES and releases: OpenNA Linux 1.0, Gibraltar
Firewall 1.0, Xandros Desktop 2.0, Onebase Linux 2.0,
CUPS 1.120rc6.
CAN YOU MAKE money with open source? Registration entails a "nominal fee" of
Rs 5000 for a three-day conference. http://www.linuxasia2004.com/attendees/
February 11-13, 2004, New Delhi.
SEND IN YOUR favourite slogans for a tee-shirt, and win
five free copies of the shirt... LFYedit at efyindia.com
MONEY CAN't buy respect, says Robert Adkins. Some of us might have met this
guy at LB2003 in Bangalore. He's the CTO of Technetra Corp, and an advocate
and implementer of FLOSS solutions for government. He can be contacted at
radkins at technetra.com
CAREERS WITH FLOSS: The number of students opting for
courses in Open Source is growing steadily, even as industry
experts predict a growing need for trained professionals
in this expanding field.
EXIT RED HAT, ENTER FEDORA: It's official now; the free (of cost) version of
Red Hat Linux will not be available anymore. This has created a lot of FUD
in an already unstable environment, thanks to the SCO episode. But is Red
Hat closed for good?
WEB-BASED COLLABORATION SOFTWARE: PHProjekt is an easy-to-install
collaboration suite, which runs on the open source platform and
databases. As the design of the system is developer-friendly,
adding new features and components is a piece of cake.
STAROFFICE: The latest version of Sun's office suite, StarOffice 7, may just
be the right solution for the cost-conscious user. It loads faster than the
earlier version, and sports some noticeable improvements.
IN THE LFY CD THIS MONTH: Slackware (the "oldest Linux distro")
and a range of GNU software for Windows users.
FALLING BACK on backup systems.
MAKING ADOPTION OF Linux in the enterprise easy. www.linux4e.com
Business partners required: http://wwww.linux4e.com/partners
ooWRITER HELPS YOU create your own templates and styles so that you can work
with documents easily.
Open Source is key to IBM's vision of computing. User
empowerment is key to Microsoft's, writes Alolita Sharma
USING DATABASE functions in Calc, a tutorial. (Wish there were more how-tos
for the user in this mag! --FN)
HALDIA DOCKS: it has a uniquely designed Linux installation
with an active-active cluster set up, which is considered
the best of its kind. This has ensured efficiency and
cost-effectiveness.
BASIC UNIX commands and concepts: an extract from *Running Linux* (Shroff
Publishers, Pp 674 only Rs 425 in India).
VxWorks and LynxOS are definitely the biggest embedded
operating systems in use today. But slowly they are
acknowledging the power of GNU/Linux and how it can
help them maximise deployments.
HELP LINUX GO INDIAN: By using various translation tools, you can join
Language translation groups working across India to help translate GNU/Linux
into your language.
EXPERT INTRODUCTION: Multi-threaded programming under Linux.
KICKSTART YOUR Linux installation (Part I): Installing Red Hat Linux on
multiple machines one after another can be quite tedious. To avoid answering
the same question over and over again, try the KickStart method, as it does
not need any user intervention.
WRITE CHEQUES. NOT JUST BOOKS: Niyam Bhushan on how
anybody can turn thoughts into words, and words into wealth.
NFS CLIENTS for Windows.
OpenSSL PACKAGE offers a vast crypto library of algorithms
WAIT QUEUES in Linux device drivers
UNDERSTANDING recursive sub-routines
INDIA-RELATED NEWS:
HP launches GNU/Linux laptop
Mandrake's latest distribution
Oracle announces 10g for GNU/Linux
Delixus offers India Linux
CxProtect anti-virus mailing solution for mail-servers
Trade management system from Network Programs
Netweb Technologies unveils Tyrone
MRO-Tek rolls out Network Management Systems
Review of FLOSS at BangaloreIT.com
===========================================
DISCLOSURE: This journalist (FN) writes a monthly column for LFY and gets
paid for it. Promoting awareness about the content of LFY however is not
part of the job, and is carried on with the intention spreading awareness
about FLOSS among different GNU/Linux user groups in India.
--
Frederick Noronha : http://www.fredericknoronha.net : When we speak of free
Freelance Journalist : http://www.bytesforall.org : software we refer to
Ph 0091.832.2409490 : Cell 0 9822 122436 : freedom, not price.
Oracle has embraced.
-------------------------------
" MariaDB is a backward compatible, drop-in replacement branch of MySQL®
Database Server which includes all major open source storage engines,
including the Maria storage engine.
You can find the MariaDB code at Launchpad, and download binaries at
Download.
MariaDB is community developed, in collaboration with Monty Program. Our
ambition is to make MariaDB the best open and free branch of MySQL Database
Server for the enduser, developer and partner communities..."
Details at http://askmonty.org/wiki/index.php/MariaDB
--
CK Raju
IIT, Mumbai, has launched http://spoken-tutorial.org to popularise Free
Software and to bridge the digital divide. Right now they have uploaded
some spoken tutorials on LaTeX, Camstudio and dubbing. All of them are
in English. Some are available in other Indian languages also.
Best
--
V. Sasi Kumar
Free Software Foundation of India
http://swatantryam.blogspot.com
Dear Friend,
FSMK News Letter's 7th issue is here.
FSMK News Letter Edition 7 <http://fsmk.org/NewsLetterEdition7>
We are bringing up some hot issues in this edition. Through the editorial,
we are discussing the issue of Digital Divide. Even though this subject is
holding highest relevance in our society, no other groups were ready to
discuss it. Read further articles and find out how we are trying to solve
this issue from the very scratch.
For the first time we have published a Kannada article as well. Expect more
in the coming editions. This is as part of our commitment to bring
localization of free Software to the Kannada space.
Also we are covering lot of News happened in and around the software field.
For FSMK, issues are not just to be discussed over mails or to be kept only
in paper. We are trying to work among the people in need. So in this efforts
we need you to carry the flag to newer heights.
Regards,
FSMK EB-Team.
Free Software Media is an initiative to publish, promote & distribute,
Free Software related text, audio and video contents across India,
professionally. Inspired by the work of Network theory Ltd[1], We are
pleased to announce this initiative with a similar objective for India.
To commence We are happy to bring out three selected Titles from Network
Theory Ltd themselves, at reasonable prices for the Indian audience. And
they are,
* An Introduction to GCC, by Brian J. Gough, foreword by Richard M.
Stallman
* An Introduction to Python – The Python Tutorial, by Guido van Rossum
and Fred L. Drake, Jr.
* Comparing and Merging Files with GNU diff and patch, by David
MacKenzie, Paul Eggert, and Richard Stallman
Currently We support three modes of purchase,
Electronic Money Transfer or Money Transfer to our Bank Account
Demand Draft/ Cheque
Value Payable Post
Details of all modes of purchase can be found at our website
http://fsm.co.in
We offer a portion of our profit to foundations that are related to each
of the above mentioned titles or make use of it for appropriate Free
Software related activity. Specific details can be found from each
book’s page at http://fsm.co.in
We hope the Free Software Community of India, Students, Teachers and the
General Public would be benefited immensely as a result of this
initiative. We thank Network Theory Ltd for the support they extended
towards this initiative.
So go & grab your copies, of the above mentioned titles, visiting
http://fsm.co.in. You can also gift it to your dear ones studying
Computer Science.
We aspire more. If you are a geek, who could write on Free Software
related Titles and is willing to offer it for freely distributable
publication, contact us. Would you like to see specific Title to come up
related to Free Software, may it be Technical, Philosophical, Legal or
in your Language, write to us. If you like to extend your co-operation
to us, in other ways, express it through http://fsm.co.in/site/contact.
Let us revive the spirit of sharing & sustaining.
And above all, help spreading the word across. Website: http://fsm.co.in
[1] - http://network-theory.co.uk
--
Sri Ramadoss M