The Ubuntu Global Jam (UGJ) - Mauritius happened today at the University of Mauritius. On the same occasion, as Ajay tossed earlier, we had a Linuxfest too. While I decided to put more of my energy in getting gears ready for the Ubuntu Jam, Ajay along with folks from the University of Mauritius Computer Club helped in to get things ready for the Linuxfest.
I planned for 08h30 but nevertheless I reached the University of Mauritius at 09h00. I called up Toshan to come help me with my gears which included four laptops, one monitor, one TV and a box of cables and accessories. Nadim & Ajay reached at that same moment and helped me carry the stuffs.
We went to the Common: Games’ Room above the university cafeteria. That’s where the event was scheduled to be. Tables were already arranged. So, we only had to plug our gears. Ajay pulled out the switch & cables. I placed my laptops and as soon as network was ready I fired a Synergy test.
Synergy is a free & open source application that allows you to share your mouse and keyboard among other computers on your desk connected through a network.
Around 10h00 Ashmita arrived. However, we then had a « time slot » issue. According to our activities the event was planned from 10h00 - 14h00. However, we were then told that we’ll have to stop around 11h30 since the room was booked for another activity. Luckily, Ashmita, Ratna & Nivedita did a great job finding another location. I must say an awesome location (^^,)
We moved our gears at the entrance of the university cafeteria. Ashmita, Heena & some others went to find a power extension. Meanwhile, I showed a Raspberry Pi to some folks and talked about cool projects that one could do with an RPi kit.
Pritvi discussed about his ODROID-U3 kit & compared it to the Raspberry Pi.
Once we had power, the show was ON! Ajay hosted some graphic applications on his laptop and Saamiyah who brought her Wacom tablet & stylus showcased her drawing skills, all running on FOSS applications. Others happily joined her.
Pritvi now was running a full Linux distribution on his ODROID-U3 & he gladly shared the experience with the curious crowd.
Nitin was more busy showcasing his web lab & usual talks about Kali Linux. I’m sure he also shared some of his sysadmin kung-fu.
While I didn’t realise it, there was a growing crowd by noon. A glimpse was caught on this picture.
On my Ubuntu stand I was having a great time too. I started by showing peeps my Ubuntu-running laptops. I had one Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit machine with Unity and another running Ubuntu MATE 14.10 64-bit Alpha 2. I first demo’ed Synergy. Students awed at how easy it was to manage both laptops with just one keyboard & mouse.
I then asked the students about their courses & if they have a web development module. Some answered positively. In fact, they had already started learning webdev & resorted to WAMP to have their mini-lab. I showed them how easy it was to setup a similar lab on their laptop with just one command on Ubuntu (and derivatives). Just shoot sudo apt-get install lamp-server^ and you’re done. The command installs Apache, MySQL and PHP. However, on my setup I had replaced MySQL with MariaDB. Just to remind, MariaDB is a drop-in replacement for MySQL.
Folks were very much interested with the web setup. I showed them the Apache config files & how to customize those for a cozy presentation at the university. Showed how to add an entry to the « /etc/hosts » in order to have a custom domain for a web presentation. From what I could understand many enjoyed this demo.
Aww! Then we discussed a load bunch of tricks which I happily shared with folks. In & all, I enjoyed myself.
Nayar & Toshan were geared up with their Raspberry Pi demos and explanations. I can’t find pictures of these creatures in action. Sorry folks.
Nadim was on the other hand helping people load Linux distributions on their laptops. Ajay also burned a couple of DVDs.
While some were having fun in groups …
… others enjoyed their geek time on their own!
Shortly after 14h00 we took the break & discussed random IT topics. SM had joined us by then. He shared a little bit of his experience & we all discussed about the Mauritius Internet Users mailing list.
Ubuntu Global Jam & Linuxfest 2014, a day to remember
