SOPA

Friday, August 29, 2008

BIT finally gets a LUG




Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppeeeeeeeee............!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BIT LUG finally becomes a reality...... All thanks to Prof. Abhijeet Mustafi... That come this Saturday i.e the 30th of august 2008 BIT LUG will finally will have its first interactive session......

The Time Line :

Initial start :

It all started started when my friend "applegrew" made me switch to Linux (Kubutnu) I had to ask him everything initially.... we are now like core Linux users.. so we started the support for Linux by setting up a local repository for Debian based Linux (mainly.. Ubuntu, Kubuntu, edubutnu, Linux mint... etc).. He used to praise Kubuntu so much that a few of our friends had kept his name only Kubuntu.. Well I learned alot from him and still I do although now he has left the college and gone for job....


The realization :


Initially only I and applegrew used to discuss about a LUG, but when he left i realised that now more and more students of BIT want to switch to Linux but as i had him to fall back upon not many people had a reliable source to fall back upon and many installed Linux and removed it as they had no clue what was going on and others did not know how to install it only... a defeat for Linux and open source??? a victory for windows???... NO!!! had to support Linux and help other free from Windows as i had.... I helped a few people initially but the load increased... I took this up with Prof. Abhijeet Mustafi he immediately agreed to help!!! But due to on going registrations, counselling and network restructuring the LUG was put on hold but not for long...


The Preparation:

We need a rough estimate for the number of students who were interested in Linux.... having a rough guess.. we thought it would be maximum 60... we launched a site for the same purpose... and well.... in just 3 days we got a overwhelming response with over 127 registrations!!!! Looking at the increasing the registrations had to be closed on the 3rd day...!!!!

To create the LUG like nothing else in BIT we had to think outside the box.... the 1st step was to create a very catchy logo for the LUG... I sat down with a junior DKD903 at 3 am on 28th and created the logo which you see at the top.... The logo was liked so much by all that it was decided to distribute stickers of the logo like that which we get with Ubuntu...

Initially on 25th it was decided to distribute Linux mint 5 to n00bs on the launch but then again thinking outside the we decided to change the distro to suite the needs of students in BIT like it would have the logo of BIT LUG into the coeee and would have Linuxdcpp (DC++), the life line of all BITian pre installed with a few other software like amarok etc and fully updated.. well this did not fully go as planned... We were successfull in creating the image but the size was 724 MB while the CDs are only 700 MB we tried overburn but it wont boot.... so back to the drawing board... and hope we can get a distro ready by tonight (29th August 2008)...

Future plans:

Well.. in BIT its not possible to look at the future but here is what we have thought of doing.... 1stly create a new distro either Ubuntu or Kubuntu based... 2ndly Get ID card made (valid for lifetime) just like the new ID cards BIt is giving... 3rdly Get agood guest lecture done out here...

As I have only time tillcoming May I should not be planning more into the future....

Wish us Good Luck and support us...!!!!