FOSS Informatics: Up and away with Ubuntu Workshop

“The time is not far when most of the people will take up the Open Source OS as their answer for their working.” This is exactly what I, and all of us felt at FOSS Informatics after seeing the overwhelming response for the Ubuntu Workshop that was scheduled to take place in 10 days time. To be honest, the time duration was provided so that most of the students would have enough registration time. Well! Talk about time that was not the issue with I.T fanatics of Informatics. ‘Coz, what turned out was least expected as the list for the workshop participants was over flown within 40 hours of the posted date. In fact, the list grew on and on to much of our delight. The event that was expected to have only few participants now had entries that could not be fitted into the time frame and schedule by any means. So, we had to split the students into groups, which meant that all the entries couldn’t be fitted into the single workshop. This was bit of a disappointment on our part as much as it was for the students who had registered much eagerly for the workshop. But as they say “When there is the will there is a way” we are already planning to organize the second workshop for the registered students in near future.

The Event

The workshop was intended on Ubuntu 8.10 (alias Intrepid Ibex) and purely for the newbies who had or hadn’t heard about Ubuntu. It was a two day program where for the first day the focus was to learn the basics of Ubuntu 8.10. The second day was focused for much awaited LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) program. It was much to our pleasure that LTSP was actually happening. ‘Coz we had to miss the earlier workshop on LTSP by FOSS-Nepal due to time scarcity. However, one of our friends was able to attend that workshop and he was willing to share his knowledge with us. That’s the beauty of this committee (FOSS) I feel; it says: ”Come, Share and Contribute”. After all, knowledge is not worth a penny until and unless you share it. Its all about expanding your horizon of knowledge.

It’s Show Time

18^th of January was the show day for the Ubuntu Workshop by FOSS-Informatics. Well the time was quick arriving and like it is with all other events; the time was scarce. The helping hand shown by our college should be applauded for in this case as well. All of us were busy with the preparations for the event. From the cozy corner of our college which I thought could only be the samosa spot was the place where few of our friends were busy giving the finishing touches minutes before the event. That’s the beauty of getting the experience as that. Actually all of us did the swell job.

I ain’t sayin’ a thing

Ya! We are not commenting on anything; frankly because we don’t need to. After having known about the facts of the Open Source OS in contrary to the others. The use of Open Source doesn’t make you feel that you are using some cheap program; it allows you to be imaginative and innovative. The list is endless. So, It is for the users’ to say how they feel with the Open Source and we won’t need to say a thing.

Well! That was one experience from many others to come ….

FOSS-INFORMATICS

# First install the module:

sudo apt-get install sshfs

# Now use modprobe command to load fuse

sudo modprobe fuse

# Need to set up some permissions in to access the utilities.

sudo adduser surmandal fuse

sudo chown root:fuse /dev/fuse

sudo chmod +x /dev/fusermount

# Note:you might get this error. I have got same error mesage too. "chmd: cannot access '/dev/fusermount' : No such file or directory." I fix it by doing

whereis fusermount

# output

/bin/fusermount

sudo chmod 4755 /bin/fusermount

# Now Logout once and log in back. Now create a Directory in desire path. I have created a DIR called blackbox in my Home Directory. mkdir ~/blackbox Now use this command to mount it. it will prompt to save the server key and for your remote computer password.

sshfs surmandal@202.79.x.x :/remotepath ~/blackbox

# Now cd into the directory and start using it as if local.

surmandal@blackbox:$ cd ~/surmandal/blackbox && ls -l

Output:

total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 surmandal surmandal 0 2008-04-14 13:05 saroj