[fedora-india] Report on Inauguration of LUG@RTUKota

[Ayush Maheshwari]

                              *Inaugural ceremony of
LUG@RTUKota<http://groups.google.co.in/group/lug-kota>
*


Hello all,
             On the auspicious day of Navratra Sthapna ( i am not an
atheist ) and Software Freedom Day ( but i am linux lover ), 19 Sep
'09 , the event was scheduled for 10 a.m. & as you all know, the
timely events generally begin with an hour-or-so delay (atleast in
India,to be true ), this was an exception,we started it with mere 20
minutes delay ( surprised here for the first time ) .
We didn't made much publicity about such happening in the college,only
few notice & mouth publicity was done .
The turnout was superb nearing to 60 ( & the hall was packed ), we
certainly didn't expect this much on govt. holiday .We were overawed
( surprised for the 2nd time ) .

Thanks to Electronics Deptt., we got the Resonance hall & thanks to
the working A.C.s , we got no unwanted environmental problems .

The LUG@RTUKota inaugural event began at 10:20 a.m. with the gracious
presence of Dr. S.C.Jain Sir ,HOD,Computer Deptt.; R.K.Bayal Sir,
Professor,Computer Deptt; Dinesh Jain Sir,Professor,Computer Deptt .

I started the presentation with LUG@RTUKota formation objectives & the
plans ahead .
The HOD Sir then inaugurated the LUG@RTUKota group & explained the
history of Open-Source software & Linus Torvalds and gave other
historical & futuristic importance of Open-Source .

Then Bayal Sir, who mentor us for LUG@RTUKota formation, presented the
difference between the Open-Source & Closed-Source software & benefits
of former above latter .He presented the beautiful & astonishing
comparison of linux v/s windows,which explains how can we save 5 Lac
rupees ( approx 11K $ )  straight by using Open-source softwares .

After that beautiful comparison, I made an interactive presentation
( i am not glorifying myself, here ) over why should we switch over
from Windows to Linux .
The misconceptions regarding Linux were removed .
The benefits of using Linux over Windows ,the large range of distros
available to choose & discussed the most downloaded distros Ubuntu &
Fedora .

After that,Jain Sir gave vote-of-thanks to the students & assured them
of their support for LUG@RTUKota & encouraged us to do regular
meetings .

Then Gaurav Agarwal , gave beautiful presentation on how to install
Fedora and covered the various options available such as
1.WUBi ( Ubuntu inside Windows )
2. Installing using LiveCD,
3. Installing on VirtualBox
4. Hard-disk Installation
He focussed on the most difficult part ( as we got to know by
surverying the students ;for detailed report regarding the survey
report ,you can contact us personally )  of installation i.e.
partitioning.

He explained every tiny part involved in installing Fedora .

*Install Fest ----> *
The students were already asked to come with laptops,who like to
install linux.
We presented them with wide range of distros available & their
features in split-second way.
We've volunteers who helped the students to install linux.
Fedora, LinuxMint & Ubuntu suited the students requirements and
installed subsequently with Gaurav showing them the installation
procedure .
Although, only 10 students came with laptops it was an encouraging
sign that they showed such an interest in the very first meeting .
The install fest continued for approx. 35 minutes.

*The Surprise Package ---> *
The multibootable dvd was made ( no software was used,only linux
commands were used in the making ) by me which contains 10 linux and
most importantly PuppyLinux.

I ( & few other students too ) started the stopwatch & booted the
puppylinux.
In 1 min 20 seconds the puppylinux welcome screen was displayed with
all the partitions shown.
Then i gave them insight into puppy ,that you can play songs.watch
videos,connect to network,text-processing,play games & do everything
without installing onto hard disk.

The students were overwhelmed & multibootable dvd was distributed to
those who came with blank dvds.

*Media Distribution----> *

The acknowledgements are due to following guys who helped us in
arranging medias for distribution -->

1. Sanjay Agarwal ( lug-jhalawar )--> He provided us with SFD kit
consisting of Ubuntu LiveCDs,SFD t-shirt & few SFD balloons.

2. Anirudh Singh Shekhawat ( lug-jaipur ) --> He provided us with
Fedora 11 dvds .

Then medias were distributed to the students .

The event got completed at 12:30 p.m.
The vote-of-thanks was given to students for huge turnout.
I believe,this report will give a quick account of the event for those
who missed it.They can download the presentations from the uploading
section . They need not to be depressed since it is the beginning
which is never going to end .

The *LUG@RTUKota* inaugural event crossed our expectations,we enjoyed it
most .
We assure them that we'll continue to organize lug meetings every
fortnight/month.

Great  & encouraging feedbacks were given.

We expect that the formation of LUG@RTUKota will help promote the
linux and cater to the needs of linux lovers, in an otherwise
educational city of Kota ( India-->Rajasthan ).

We acknowledge the efforts of the following volunteers who help us in
organizing the event -->

Sulabh Vijayvergiya ( III year CSE )
Gaurav Gupta ( III year IT )
Ashvin  Suthar ( III year CSE )

Regards,
LUG@RTUKota

P.S.--> Please pardon any grammatical erorrs , i tried my best to
avoid them .

*Presentations* can be downloaded from
here<https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/File:Presentation.,[e-mail]...;.

Snaps can be viewed here <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/File:Snaps.tar.bz2>;.


Gaurav Agarwal     <gauravagrawal AT fedoraproject DOT org>

Ayush Maheshwari  <hakmn AT fedoraproject DOT org>