I am posting the report on the Workshop held at Fr. CRCE Bandra on the
12th and 13th of October, 2002.
The report was written by Harsh Busa.
The same will be put up on the db.ilug-bom.org.in website.
Philip
2 Days @ Fr CRCE: Linux Workshop
Report on Linux Workshop conducted at Fr. Conceciao Rodrigues College of
Engineering, Bandra.
Speakers: (all from Ilug-bom)
Dr. G. Nagarjuna
Mr. Dinesh Shah
Mr. Philip S Tellis
Mr. Harsh Busa
Introduction:
In late September, Philip was approached by Professor Shubhangi
Deshmukh, of Fr. CRCE, Bandra, to organise a workshop on linux for the
students of their college. Further coordination was with Mr. Aliasgar
Dahodwala, a final year BE student.
After a few discussions with Lug members, four persons volunteered to
speak at the workshop.
The workshop was to be held across two days, the 12th and 13th of
October, 2002.
The following schedule was drawn up with reference to topics suggested
by the students, speaker expertise, and convenience of the speakers.
Day 1, Morning Session:
- Basic linux terminal commands - Harsh Busa
- Loadable modules in the linux kernel - Philip
- C Programming using Autotools - Philip
- Short intro to perl - if time - Philip
Day 1, Afternoon session:
- Kernel compilation - Dinesh
- Description of the /proc file system - Philip
- Shell programming - Harsh
If time permits, add vi and emacs here.
Day 2, Morning Session:
- Distinction between *nix and non-unix - Nagarjun
- Linux File Structure - Nagarjuna or Harsh
- File manipulation in Linux - Harsh
Afternoon Session:
- apache and samba configuration - Dinesh or Nagarjuna
- configuring modem/sound/graphics/etc. - Dinesh or Nagarjuna
Day 1:
The first day started of nearly an hour late as the venue had to be
shifted at the last moment from the Seminar Hall to a Classroom. In our
opinion, this may have been a blessing as the classroom was smaller, and
our voices could reach everyone without much straining.
The topics gave speakers a general impression that the participants had
some kind of familiarity with linux. We were also informed that the
college had recently conducted a linux worshop before it and use it
regularly for lab purpose.
The opening poll suggested the otherwise. Except for a few final year
and third year participants most were new to the concept of linux.
This called for a prompt shift in focus, from Advanced Topics down to
Creating Literacy and Awareness
Harsh started out the first session, trying to touch upon basic
filesystem stucture and commands. The session lasted around 90 minutes.
Philip took over towards the end, introducing regular expressions using
grep. [ed's note: my last regex lecture was 3 hours, this one was 30
minutes. I think they learnt much more this time.]
It was decided at this point to postpone, or maybe even omit the concept
of modular kernels.
After the lunch break the session Shell Scripting was pushed up as it
turned out that Philip's presentation on autotools was missing
(specifically, the web directory in which the presentation was kept did
not have read permissions).
Harsh took up basic bash programming covering variables, expressions,
conditions and loop structures. This was followed by a few simple
examples suggested by members of the audience.
Following this Philip took up the topic of AutoTools for writing C
programs. We thought that it would be interesting to many, but without
the slides, and with few people having been through the configure, make,
make install process, it was too abstract for most. Some found it
interesting but many seemed to be getting bored.
It was already about 4 in the evening so it was time to wind up theory
and let people try out some stuff for themselves. The exercise had 4
shell scripts:
- Prime Numbers
- Calculator
- cp/mv/rm with more options / Interactive
- Word Filter using grep.
The day was dispersed without Dinesh getting to speak about Kernel
Compilation and Philip unable to cover /proc, Loadable Kernel modules
and Perl.
Day 2:
The second day started of on a rather positive note it was only 15mins
off the schedule. The session was already reorganised by Dr. Nagarjuna
looking at the previous day's experince.
More time was given to speaking about Why Linux, its roots, the
philosophy behind the free software foundation and what distinguishes
POSIX ish OS from other OSes. This took around 90-100 mins and then
before turning to the lab Dr. Nagarjuna gave a short preamble to EMACS
which he then covered more extensively in the labs.
It was decided to cut out the File Manipulation topic since people were
already using VI and it would leave little time for other topics.
Following the post lunch session Dinesh ran through the need for a
customised kernel and then spoke about various aspects of selecting
components for a custom kernel, various ways of compiling the kernel on
shell and X both.
Following this Dr. Nagarjuna demonstrated a Debian installation and
explained various aspects of its several steps including adding modules
to the system with apt-get and then towards the end samba and apache
configuration.
The speakers took some questions while the installion was going on.
By the end of everything people too tired even to ask questions and
simply wanted to rush home.
Schedule:
Finally, the schedule of what actually happened.
Day 1, Morning Session:
- Linux File Structure - Harsh
- Basic linux terminal commands - Harsh Busa
- grep - Philip
Day 1, Afternoon session:
- Shell programming - Harsh
- C Programming using Autotools - Philip
- Lab
Day 2, Morning Session:
- Distinction between *nix and non-unix - Nagarjun
- Philosphy of Opensource and Free S/W - Nagarjun
Afternoon Session:
- Kernel compilation - Dinesh
- Installing a typical Debian System - Nagarjun
- apache and samba configuration - Dinesh or Nagarjuna
Endnote:
The organisers and the staff, everyone was very hospitable and lunch
also quite nice.
Though the sessions were interesting but quite randomly laid down topics
and the vast spectrum of audience made it very difficult to satisfy
everyone.
It would have been better if the topics were selected keeping the
audience and time in mind. The sessions were too short to do complete
justice to the topic yet too long for the audiance to digest everything.
It would be better if students internally cover some initial awareness
sessions themselves and then have special topics arranged on weekends
with a very definite topic in mind.
Going by public demand often leads no one anywhere. If so many topics
need to be covered well, then they should be spread over several days.
or else simply have a separate beginner's workshop and then an advanced
system admin or programming.