I got introduced to Free Software at the Banglore IT.COM 2000, and for
what it is worth I share that experience here.
The IT.COM event was given very wide publicity in the newspapers and
magazines. At the show entrance, volunteers registered the visitors
through terminals, and gave an ID Card that could be worn, a jute
carry bag and a CD titled IT.COM upon registration. Well, the
Registration fees was Rs. 100/- or so [no free lunch]. The show was
many times bigger that what Meera Dynamic does every now and then in
Chennai, but size hardly matters - there was just one large Free
Software pavilion with the banner `Linux', where demos, talks, selling
cd's etc were all happening at the same time. The Pavilion was like
this: [please use emacs/vi to view]
+---------+------------------------------------------------------+---------+
| Miscellaneous Terminals |
| SuSE* Clusters
|
| |
+---------+
|
| CAD |
| Mandrake* +----------------------------+
|
| | Conference Area | |
+---------+ | |
+---------+
| |xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx| |
| Caldera* |xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx|
|
| |xxx xChairsxx xxxxxxxxx xxx| |
+---------+ |xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx| Network
|
| |xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx| Demo |
| RedHat* +----------------------------+ |
| |
+---------+ +---------+
| |
| +--------------------------------+ |
| | CDs/Packs/T-Shirts/Selling |
|
| Way in | CDROM Sales | Way out |
| | | |
+ +================================+
+
The entire pavilion was literally free and open, with light partitions
to demarcate areas. The terminals were showing off the nice tools and
games available on KDE. Some neat drawings were displayed on the CAD
terminals. Rugged hardware machinery running the clusters were on the
floor, unlike the dainty PC's that sat on desks. The volunteers
explained things crisply, allowed me to try a few things, and gave
pamplets. This was the first time I came face to face with free
software, and was immediately convinced about it, and wanted to start
using it. While walking out, I purchased a few distros - Mandrake and
some others for about Rs.100/-.
I came back home and tried installing the distros. I could never
install X with the hardware I had then, and could only get to the
command prompt. I meanwhile got `Setting up a Linux Server - Visual
Black Book- Step-By-Step Visual Guide' by Hide Tsuji and Takashi
Wantanabe, published by dreamtech Press and got a good picture of the
things possible. Simple commands like cat *.txt and grep thrilled me
to no end. Later, I had another occasion to visit Bangalore, and this
time went in for the SuSE 7.0 box, which met all my requirements.
With help from the book and the box, I set up a usable server.
Over the past 4 years, I have downloaded sources from the internet or
got CDs to update the tools I use. Learning and updating free
software is virtually without limits, and so we are here, I guess.
HTH :)
Ramanraj.
__
Notes:
*This is about my first contact with Gnu/Linux. Application based
division may make better sense than distro based ones.
For example booths can be classified like this:
Games: icebreaker;tetris;quickcell;Mirrormagic
Paint: tuxpaint;gimp
A/V: xmms;mtv
Dev: emacs;vi
Server: LAMP, Sendmail, wiki, php nuke, etc.
** Please also use wiki or something like that to register people at
the entrance, and for collecting comments at the exit point
Rough map drawn with emacs - it can cut and copy rectangles:
select with point and mark
C-x r c to copy rectangle
C-x r k to kill rectangle
C-x r y to paste/yank rectangle
