= FOSS @ Amrita = == Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri Campus == '''FOSS Club''' at '''Amritpuri''' [http://foss.amrita.ac.in/] is celebrating the SFD with various events. This time, we have 50+ students in the club. '''Software freedom day (SFD)''' is celebrated on the second saturday of September. This year, SFD was celebrated on 17th September. SFD is a celebration of Free and Open source Software (FOSS). With 30 plus FOSS club members, Amritapuri FOSS club took active participation in celebrating software freedom day at Amritapuri campus with lot of fun, and learning through various levels of events from talks by prominent people to movie screening. '''Seshagiri Prabhu''' of S7 CSE an active member of Amritapuri FOSS club, organized the event along with the support from other senior FOSS club members. The programme list of SFD’11 at Amritapuri is charted below. ||1|| Session on Open Source Software by Dr. Raj Mohan || 10:45 - 11:30|| ||2|| Skype session on security with Avinash Joshi || 11:30 - 12:30|| ||3|| Presentation on FOsSS experience by all FOSS students || 14:45 - 17:15|| ||4|| Screened Open Movies || 17:30 - 18:00|| ||5|| Upgrading of lab systems || 18:00 - 20:00|| ||6|| Photo session. || 20:00 - 19:05|| The morning session started of with talk by '''Dr. Raj Mohan''', professor Dept of Physics, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri campus on his experience on FOSS. The session was very informative. He gave us broad idea about many open source alternatives property software. He asked us to read articles written by Richard Stallman. He suggested that we read “How To Ask Questions The Smart Way”, by Eric Steven Raymond(an open source software advocate). He then explained to us in depth about the various flavours of Linux, some of them being Debian Linux, Redhat Linux, Scientific Linux, Poseidon Linux, and Security Enhanced Linux(SEL). Some of the other topics that he discussed were Aruduino/Freeduino(easy to use software/hardware), PUIAS(Princeton University for Instant Advanced Studies), FERMILAB, CLUSTERS,etc.. He also talked to us about Robotics(about NAO ROBOTS - a French Company). Embedded Systems was another topic that he talked about. He talked about Scientific Python and Numeric Python. This session was followed by Skype session by '''Avinash Joshi''' from US. Avinash was a active FOSS club member at Amritapuri campus. He has also made many opensource contribution. He had a very interactive session with FOSS club members. << We could clarify many of our doubts regarding the higher studies and many other technical doubt. The session was very informative. We asked him about the BIOS Team of which he is a part. Since we knew nothing about BIOS, he had a tough time explaining to us about it. He showed us a code and asked us to identify the error in it. None of could find what was the mistake with the code and so he himself explained what the error was. In the program, he had written a statement to copy a string to a buffer. He had dynamically alotted only 5 memory spaces or so to the buffer. But the string that he intended to copy had more than 5 characters. He had used strcpy() function to copy the string. It was displaying the wrong answer. He then said that we were supposed to use the function strncpy() instead of strcpy(). He explained how strcpy() was not secure, in the sense that it did not check how many characters can actuallly copied into the destination. He also gave the second years advice on how to start preparing for GRE. He asked them to start preparing their resume and Statement of Purpose immediately and not wait for the final year. Another advice given to them was that they maintain their SGPA steadily at a good level. The morning sessions concluded with this for lunch. Afternoon sessions were more fun with the members have to apply more of their creativity. It is very important that we all know how to make a good presentation. And students rarely get chance to learn how to make a good one. FOSS club took the initiative to organize a competition where students who are making the best presentation will be awarded. Through this event the students will try to learn to put on their imagination into their presentations and bring out the best in them. Making presentation is not the only part, they also need to present it before all the FOSS club members. '''Aravind S Raj''' of S7 CSE was the judge, he gave nice feedbacks to all and made their presentation much more effective. The theme for the Presentation was '''How FOSS club improved my skills'''. Movie screening began at 5.30 pm in the evening, two movies Sintel and Big Buck Bunny were screened. These had their existence from open source software such as Blender. The refreshments were provided during the movie screening. The final session was '''upgrading the Operating systems''' in the computer lab of the college. There were 120 systems in which Ubuntu 8.10 LTS was running and hence the team decided to upgrade all the systems to 10.10 LTS without the help or support from the lab staffs. The plan was beautifully executed with the help of all the students who attended the SFD. The regular lab students will be benefited by the upgrade with essential packages for programming and general applications. The SFD celebration ended with photo session. The photos are uploaded at https://plus.google.com/photos/107031861210228955387/albums/5653651699597583393 '''Goodies''':We had stickers of software freedom day and many other goodies like pens and CD’s. ---- CategoryTeam2011 CategoryTeam2011