Installing NS2 in Ubuntu gets easy

Hi friends, the following is one of the easy procedures to get ns2 (Network Simulator) running on Ubuntu:
1.Download the .rar file form here.
2. Now extract it (u need unrar programme for that).
3. You would find some .deb packages. Just right click on each and choose "Open with Package Installer".
4. Open the terminal and type: ns . If you see a % sign then you have successfully installed ns2
5. Now to test the simulator, type in terminal : ns example.tcl and a simulator should pop up.(You need to write a sample tcl for this or you may donwload the example tcl file from here).
That's it , congratulations,you have installed ns2 without much hasstles i suppose. :)

P.S:
1. While installing the packages with the package manager, some error messages may come , so leave those packages, and proceed with next and then come back to it.

2. A tutorial on ns and tcl can be accessed here.
3. Through the above method one won't be able to edit the source code of ns , so for that one can downlaod the ns-allinone RC7 from here . Extract it and do ./install . Then one needs to add some path variables in ~/.bashrc file (you will be told after the install process) and then run ./validate inside the ns folder

The Beginnning of Another End

It gives me immense pleasure to say that Mukti 11.2 ended in great spirits- The spirit of Openness and collaboration, contribution and encouragement.
Sadly it was my last Mukti as a co-ordinator but indeed the journey's been memorable.
Day 1:
Mukti 11.2 started with speeches from our Director and teachers who promoted foss. We had some wonderful speakers like Rahul Sundaram who started the day with workshop on RPM packaging .There was a great turn out and the workshop was very informative.
This was followed by some events. Later in the evening we had the workshop on Python programming(basics) by Kushal Das
Day 2:
The second day there were talks on Python Programming(advanced)by Kushal and then later Shilip Gupta gave some tips on Fundamentals of Programming.
Late in the evening i had the prelims of my event ,InCanity. Thanks to all for the great response. Only 1 of the qualifying team -"Madmen"( which ultimately were the winners) could correctly answer the question : "Importance of keyword volatile in C " . It left me wondering was it that uncommon??
Day 3:
At 10:00 am we started off with the finals of InCanity which was quiet interesting especially with teams competing to get the shortest code in a question.
Meanwhile we had workshop on System Programming in Python by Kushal.
In the afternoon we had talk on QML by Shantanu Tushar Jha following by Shreyank's workshop on Ruby on Rails.
After this we started off with closing ceremony by giving away the prizes for various events, with the best moments coming with Shreyank, DJing. Oh! take away his phone and he's helpless :)
Overall it was a great success, thank you all for being part of it.
Looking forward for Mukti 12.2

Mukti 11.02

Hi friends,
Each year Open Source enthusiasts from all over the country rise to it in unison. When Mukti comes calling.... MUKTI is the Annual National Level Technical Symposium on GNU/Linux and Free Software conducted by the GNU/Linux Users' Group of NIT Durgapur. Our sole goal is to promote the awareness of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in and beyond the student community of India. We have had the opportunity to play host to a number of eminent FOSS contributors at the international level during MUKTI. We preach the holy teachings of Open Source and practice it at the hallowed portals of the numerous workshops dedicated to it.We have also always had the good fortune of being associated with an enthusiastic and knowledge audience. So if you want to breath the fresh air of freedom – freedom from copyrights, licenses and registration codes - it is time to wake up. To the call of MUKTI...
So come on and register youself.

Solution to .jnlp file not launching in ubuntu

Hi, i was having this problem of not being able to launch a .jnlp file , i thought that it might be some problem with the java installed in my system and was almost ready to reinstall it when luckly i realised that Sun java was requiered for it and the default i was using was OpenJDK.
So i corrected it and now it's working perfectly :)
Here's how you can do it to prevent any hasstles.
Type in the terminal:
sudo update-alternatives --config java
This command will present you the java options in your system and the default one . Just follow the instruction and choose Sun Java as the default.
That's it . Enjoy :)

FOSS.IN

This was my first and sadly the last FOSS.IN and as expected, it was full of fun as well as inspiration. Speakers and developers from around the globe had gathered for this event.
On the first day , i got off a little late from my room and reached the spot only to find a long queue for the ID cards. After the formalities, we (Praveen, Prayag and of course me) stepped in the hall.
The first talk was on Wikimedia by Danese Cooper who also said "Wikileaks!= Wikimedia" :)
There were several other talks but i attented a few which included :
Beyond init - Leonart Pottering
Failures of Fedora and what we learned from it -Rahul Sundaram
Day two was even more interesting:
It featured Fedora MiniConf . It included 6 talks. Rahul started it by getting throught the schedule and then Amit talked about virtulisation.This was followed by talk by Arun and then Ankit Patwari and then Shreyank talked about his Four Seasons Of Code.
Later we had a packaging session by Arun Sag.
The last day included another packaging session by Rahul and it was very detailed. Thanks to IRC :)
The event ended with a lively performance by Raghu Dixit , a well known band in Karnatka and the ambience was filled with excitement. Thanks to him , i even learned some Kannad words!!
It was an awesome experience and will be remembered for a long time .
Proud to use Open Source .

Convert .jpg to .pdf instantly! and combine multiple pdf to one

Hi all, recently i had to convert some .jpg files to pdf , i knew that it can be done via GIMP by exporting as pdf but going by the number of files , it would have taken a lot of time, so i googled and found this amazing tool called Imagemagick which one can find in the Ubuntu repository.
First you need to install it as:
sudo apt-get install imagemagick
and then convert simply as:
convert foo.jpg foo.pdf
Moreover i'm thinking of writing a bash script which would convert all the files at one go. It will take some time so keep watching.
Here's script i wrote to convert all the .jpg files in the current directory to .pdf:


#!/bin/bash
count=1;
for file in *.JPG;
do
echo "$file coverted to $count.pdf"
convert $file $count.pdf
let count=$count+1
done


Now to combine multiple pdfs to one , one needs to install two small packages:
gs and pdftk
next to combine use the following command:
pdftk *.pdf output combined.pdf
where combined.pdf is the new combined pdf formed.

Hope it was useful.
Proud to use open source :)

Anyone into Programming?

Hi, it's been really long since the last post.I've been really busy of late due to campus placements and this i think will go on for another semester :(
Neverthless i've been practising at various online judges like SPOJ
and TOPCODER . They are a very good platform for one to build one's programming skills and the problems vary with difficulty.
I came across a blog recently about how one can improve his programming skills and would like to share with you all. Though it ultimately depends on how you go about it but here's just a startup.
Good luck. :)