Indian GNU/Linux User's Group, Kolkata Chapter and Department of Radio Physics and Electronics, Calcutta University had organized a 5-Day Workshop on GCC from 2-23rd June 2007. After a month of studying, teaching, shearing footaches and dried up mouth, I sit to write about the workshop.
Preparations
Not too much prepared :). We started off with shaky legs and doubtful mind as to what to do. Me and Debarshi Ray started off with writing tutorials and discussions on the topics to be covered on the #ilug-cal irc channel. The top level list of items was suggested by Dr. Partha Pratim Das. We selected items from that list and after many a long discussion came up with a rough game plan for the workshop. T
he format was simple:
We start off with the basics of Free Software. Move to GCC. Do a small session on writing make files. And move to a basic tutorial on GDB. The idea of the workshop would be to enable the users to hack-up a small project of their own.
Final phase of the preparations was completed with a meeting of the volunteers at the Cafe Coffee Day at the Infinity Building in Kolkata.
On the CU front, Prof Susanta Sen, Sumit Das Gupta and Arpita di were working day-in and day-out to handle the administrative tasks and other necessary preparations.
With all this complete, we were all setup for the workshop on all fronts.
Inaugration
Day started off with an inauguration program. Present were Professor Debesh Das, Hon'ble minister in Charge, Information Technology, Govt. of West Bengal, Prof. T. K. Ghosal, Pro-VC Finance, Calcutta University, Professor D. K. Basu (TEQUIP), Prof. P. K. Basu (TEQUIP), Prof. Goutam Ghosh and Prof. Bijoy Bandyopadhyay, Convenor for the Workshop, and of course Professor Susanta Sen, Head of the Department, Calcutta University. They spoke well about the current wave of enthusiasm over Free and Open Source Software in West Bengal. They also appreciated the herd from Ilug-cal who had really worked hard to make it a success.
This program ended with a high-tea and we went onto the workshop.
The Workshop Sessions
The first two days had two sessions, one on GNU/Linux Pretutorial and the other was the main workshop on Linux. Resources for the Pre Tutorial were Debarshi Ray, Indranil Das Gupta and Kakoli Bhattacharya. For the GCC workshop, it was me, Debanjan Basu, Madhubanti Das Gupta, Debarshi Ray, Avishek Dutta, and Parantap. Not all of us were present on all days except me and Debrashi... Others shared the duties between themselves. And thanks to my apathy towards vanilla flavoured icecream, Debarshi has 2 ice-creams everyday..
We were sure that there would be interest in the workshop. What we saw how ever was overwhelming... People were very much interested in learning the tools offered. Most of the participants were faculty from different academic institutions, including Techno India, IEM and Ashutosh College as well as people from the Computer Science Department, Calcutta University. A lot of bright students had also appeared eager to learn the ways of FOSS. They were enlightened and will hopefully come forward as developers for different open source projects. Since the workshops I have had many mails from many a participant asking for various details. Some such as Debashruti Maitra have already come forward and joined the LUG.
We tried to cover the basics of GCC, make and GDB. Even the basics amount to a lot.. so we can say we touched the surface only. However, if followed the tutorials will help students to hack up prototype projects of their own.
The overall response was extremely positive from the participants. However, the general notion was that it would have been better if the workshop could have been split up over two days. This could have been done, but what started off as an idea for small workshop for 20 people ended up being a grand one covering 120 people!! We are happy that atleast we could start them off on the journey to FOSS nirvana through the workshop.
Moments
In no particular order:
1) Rishi getting scolded by one of the participants for standing in front of her...
2) One of the participants trying to make us understand some co-rllation between "Desktop refresh" and "capacitor discharge in RAM" !! :-0
etc etc.
Photographs
Many thanks to...
Workshop on GCC, Make and GDB basics:
The materials can be found here.
Preparations
Not too much prepared :). We started off with shaky legs and doubtful mind as to what to do. Me and Debarshi Ray started off with writing tutorials and discussions on the topics to be covered on the #ilug-cal irc channel. The top level list of items was suggested by Dr. Partha Pratim Das. We selected items from that list and after many a long discussion came up with a rough game plan for the workshop. T
he format was simple:We start off with the basics of Free Software. Move to GCC. Do a small session on writing make files. And move to a basic tutorial on GDB. The idea of the workshop would be to enable the users to hack-up a small project of their own.
Final phase of the preparations was completed with a meeting of the volunteers at the Cafe Coffee Day at the Infinity Building in Kolkata.
On the CU front, Prof Susanta Sen, Sumit Das Gupta and Arpita di were working day-in and day-out to handle the administrative tasks and other necessary preparations.
With all this complete, we were all setup for the workshop on all fronts.
Inaugration
Day started off with an inauguration program. Present were Professor Debesh Das, Hon'ble minister in Charge, Information Technology, Govt. of West Bengal, Prof. T. K. Ghosal, Pro-VC Finance, Calcutta University, Professor D. K. Basu (TEQUIP), Prof. P. K. Basu (TEQUIP), Prof. Goutam Ghosh and Prof. Bijoy Bandyopadhyay, Convenor for the Workshop, and of course Professor Susanta Sen, Head of the Department, Calcutta University. They spoke well about the current wave of enthusiasm over Free and Open Source Software in West Bengal. They also appreciated the herd from Ilug-cal who had really worked hard to make it a success.
This program ended with a high-tea and we went onto the workshop.
The Workshop Sessions
The first two days had two sessions, one on GNU/Linux Pretutorial and the other was the main workshop on Linux. Resources for the Pre Tutorial were Debarshi Ray, Indranil Das Gupta and Kakoli Bhattacharya. For the GCC workshop, it was me, Debanjan Basu, Madhubanti Das Gupta, Debarshi Ray, Avishek Dutta, and Parantap. Not all of us were present on all days except me and Debrashi... Others shared the duties between themselves. And thanks to my apathy towards vanilla flavoured icecream, Debarshi has 2 ice-creams everyday..
We were sure that there would be interest in the workshop. What we saw how ever was overwhelming... People were very much interested in learning the tools offered. Most of the participants were faculty from different academic institutions, including Techno India, IEM and Ashutosh College as well as people from the Computer Science Department, Calcutta University. A lot of bright students had also appeared eager to learn the ways of FOSS. They were enlightened and will hopefully come forward as developers for different open source projects. Since the workshops I have had many mails from many a participant asking for various details. Some such as Debashruti Maitra have already come forward and joined the LUG.
We tried to cover the basics of GCC, make and GDB. Even the basics amount to a lot.. so we can say we touched the surface only. However, if followed the tutorials will help students to hack up prototype projects of their own.
The overall response was extremely positive from the participants. However, the general notion was that it would have been better if the workshop could have been split up over two days. This could have been done, but what started off as an idea for small workshop for 20 people ended up being a grand one covering 120 people!! We are happy that atleast we could start them off on the journey to FOSS nirvana through the workshop.
Moments
In no particular order:
1) Rishi getting scolded by one of the participants for standing in front of her...
2) One of the participants trying to make us understand some co-rllation between "Desktop refresh" and "capacitor discharge in RAM" !! :-0
etc etc.
Photographs
Many thanks to...
- Beloved professors: Susanta Sen, PKB, GG and BB
- Sumit Da and Arpita Di
- PPD and SC from my office
Workshop on GCC, Make and GDB basics:
- 2-June-2007
- 9-June-2007
- 16-June-2007
- 17-June-2007
- 23-June 2007
- 2-June-2007
- 9-June-2007
The materials can be found here.
4 comments:
Hi This is Shankha here...Nice blog..can we hv our pics here??
chk this out....shansolutions.blogspot.com
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