[Fsf-india] FEATURE: The Penguin as Engineer...

[Frederick Noronha]

THE PENGUIN AS ENGINEER: TAKING GNU/LINUX TO THE PORTALS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

By Frederick Noronha

IT MAY BE taking its time to get done, but this is one simple idea that
could have a wide-ranging impact for thousand of young
engineers-in-the-making across India.

Put briefly, the idea is simply to compile a whole range of useful and
'free' software that engineering students from this 'talent-rich,
resource-poor' country of a thousand million-plus can effectively use in
their studies and work.

It calls for quite a bit of scouring around -- and matching the needs of
students with what's available out there, in the wide world of cyberspace.
But since the software to be used is from the Free Software/Open Source
world of GNU/Linux, it means that once compiled, this useful collection
could be freely distributed without copyright or unreasonably-high cost
restrictions. 

(GNU/Linux is a computer operating system that runs on many different
computers. It has been built up largely by volunteers worldwide, and comes
with along with its freely-copyable 'source-code' and thus offers you the
freedom to its users and programmers in many more senses than just coming
across at affordable costs.)

First to initiate this Nagarjuna G, a scientist and keen Free Software
proponent at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. This centre is
located at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in the Indian
commercial capital of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Incidentally Nagarjuna is
also the founder of the Linux-in-Education (LIFE) mailing list. See details
at http://mm.hbcse.tifr.res.in/mailman/listinfo/life

Prof Nagarjuna <nagarjun@hbcse.tifr.res.in> first broached the subject thus,
via one of the many GNU/Linux-related mailing lists active in India: "I am
presently planning a single CD distribution containing the applications and
goodies required for a regular engineering college student.  I would like to
keep in mind the syllabus and projects students do.  Can some of you tell us
what kind of applications are used/needed by students?"

He argues that volunteers can build the list and "sit on one Sunday" and put
together the 'distro' (or distribution, referring to the collection of
software required).

It sounds easy. But this is a task which calls for considerable thought,
coordination and planning.

"Debian GNU/Linux has special scripts to make custom CDs from their original
master distribution.  I am planning to use this," says Nagarjuna.

(Incidentally, Debian is one of GNU/Linux's most popular non-commercial
distributions. It was started eight years ago by a Purdue undergraduate Ian
Murdock who felt the need of a distribution that GNU/Linux users could
trust. He went about his task by fusing the name of his girlfriend, Debra,
with that of his and founded what would become GNU/Linux's most popular
non-commercial distribution.)

Nagarjuna admits that this project has been on the cards for some time now.
Inspite of being such an interesting idea -- a whole generation of
engineering students could get access to the power of GNU/Linux software --
it has not been easy to push through. Not surprising in the world of
volunteer work, where real-life jobs and earning a living mean one can't
always do what one wanted to. 

But the efforts are on. 

"(This is) another thing which needs to be done but could not do it because
no volunteers.  But this is also on the agendas of the FSF-India (the
Indian-branch of the Free Software Foundation).  We will soon identify a
team for this and get it going," says he, determinedly.

Mumbai-based Trevor Warren agrees. In a recent e-mail based discussion, he
noted that working to build up such a forum would be suitable for
"like-minded GNUers like us to spread and nurture the idea of Free
Software". This is increasingly seen as an important job in a country like
India, rich in software talent but poor in terms of the code it actually has
access to when it comes to meeting its own requirements.

"(We hope to build) a distribution that's customised for engineering
students to help them take to Linux and get going with all the applications
that would help them hone their skills on various technical aspects part and
parcel of their curriculum," says Warren.

There has been a lot of debate over what software would be best squeezed
into the space available on the CD. To be useful it would have to cater to a
range of students' interests. 

Electronic engineering students would have their own requirements. For
instance Spice, the analog circuit simulation software or Varkon (which
plays the role of a computer-aided design software). BruseY20 is a VHDL
generator. VGUI is a block-diagram to VHDL. SAVANT is a VHDL simulator while
Alliance offers a complete set of VLSI tools. (VLSI stands for very large
scale integration, and relates to the important field of chip design.)

Other suggestions that have come up include something for CAM/gerber
post-processing, a FPGA design package and a VLSI design package. Besides,
GNU/Linux also offers such suitable tools like RDBMS with its front-ends and
admin tools; PostGreSQL; MySQL; PgAccess; Tcl/Tk; Perl5; PHP; PHP MyAdmin
and PHPPgAdmin (administrative interfaces for MySQL and Postgres in PHP).

For chemical engineers-in-the-making, GNULinux also offers a chance of
finding suitable molecular manipulation software.

Useful programs like Rasmol, qcad and others could also be of immense use
to engineering students, if easily located on one CD. For computer
engineering students too, GNULinux offers rather useful tools. These include
expat (an xml parser); jboss (an EJB container); mico (CORBA
implementation); BONOBO; ACE + TAO; ethereal (network protocol analyser
which students called "great for learning all about network protocols");
nmap ("arguably the best port scanner around"); nessus ("great for
demonstrating basic security issues") and even Beowulf.

GNULinux is a great operating system for the Net, since it was itself born
in an Internet generation, though collaborative cooperation among thousands
of volunteers worldwide. This means it has a number of useful web tools --
including Apache, PHP, Perl5, Webmin and CGI scripting.

Zope and Python, Tomcat and jservers are the other tools that the
engineering students would also like to have access to.

On the Civil Engineering front, Free Software offers a whole list of useful
tools to engineers-in-the-making. These include Varkon (CAD), Grass5 (GIS),
and some vehicular traffic analysis and simulation tools.

Some tools, of course, would be of common interest to all students: GnuCash
for simple accounting, Gnumeric for spreadsheets, Abiword for
word-processing, magicpoint, and multimedia tools that can be used for
creating presentations and as teaching aids.

But the task is to weed out the really useful programs from those which are
not so functional. 

On the publishing front too, GNULinux has its options. For example, SGML
tools, jade, stylesheets, docbook, tex/latex, yacc, flex and bison. There's
also lyx.

Together with these software packages, engineering students would also get
access to simulators for the above, tutorial and documentation for the
software. 

Being Free Software, often created by volunteers who don't have the motive
of gaining by hiding vital information, such packages are mostly very
transparent and open in their approach. They also helpful documentation
accompanying them -- often at very affordable prices, if not free...and
copyable without restrictions too.

There are some problems though. Not all Linux-based software is Free
Software in the true spirit of what was intended. For instance, MTech
student at KReSIT (IIT Bombay) Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe points out: "Spice
and Magic are two very important tools, but have licenses which do not allow
redistribution!"

(The Reconfigurable Computing Lab is just one lab under the Kanwal Rekhi
School of Information Technology, which is a part of IIT Bombay.) 

For Computer Engineering students, some other suggestions include SNNS
(neural networks), ns (simulator for computer networks), and Esterel
(synchronous design language for embedded systems).

For general students, the RFCs and IEEE Standards would be of interest.
Students discussing this issue felt the need to get access to computing
standards, including Posix standards.

Scouring through software available also gives a good idea of what's
lacking, and where the gaps really are.

Commented another student: "For mechanical and automobile engineering
students, I had forgotten qcad. Even though I've used the silly thing. What
we're seriously missing are a CAM and FEA package."

Take a look at some of the software available under GNU/Linux. Ansys is one
of the most popular engineering software use for the analysis of complex
structures -- even the problems of fluid structure interaction can be solved
by this. Lsdyna is an advanced analysis software having some capabilities
not found in ANSYS. Fluent is being used in water resource and in chemical
engineering. 

Matlab, a software many engineering students talk about, is very useful for
solving all types of systems involving extensive matrix operations. It has
its specific programming language with built in functions. "Usually all the
engineering problems get reduced to a system of differential equations and
involve matrix operations, so its a kind of software that everyone finds
useful irrespective of discipline," as one engineer in this debated noted. 

With so much of software available, but often not widely known, it becomes a
hard job to choose. 

"That is the biggest dilemma we face -- selection or rejection of a software
for inclusion in the CD. Any suggestions on the selection or rejection
criteria to simplify the procedure?" asks Animesh Nerurkar from Goa.

Chances of getting tonnes of tools via a low-cost CD also promotes new
ideas. 

Adds Nerurkar, himself a student of automobile engineering: "Prof. Nagarjuna
mentioned e-books. That set me thinking... is it possible to get e-books on
engineering subjects like heat transfer, calculus, and algebra? Should we
include those? They could be in valuable."

Open Source and Free Software is obviously turning into a boon for students
-- specially those in engineering -- in India. "I have a CD full of docs..
and more lined up," says Animesh, explaining what he finds useful.

Sahasrabuddhe suggests: "We might need to think about how to structure the
distro -- maybe a couple of base CD's, a docs CD, and then a set of CD's
roughly corresponding to the requirements of each branch. I think the docs
CD should be common for all branches ... The tutorials will go with the
corresponding utilities."

Students feel they could become guinea-pigs for each other. Thus avoiding
the problems that are faced by those going before them. "I think we should
maintain a publicly available list somewhere. Every entry should have a
small description, and list at least one person who has used it and thinks
that it is really useful for an engineering student," argues Sahasrabuddhe,
an MTech student at the prestigious IIT-Bombay.

Says Prof Nagarjuna: "Strictly speaking, the Debian distro is the best bet
for engineering students as is.  But when we thought of making a engineering
'distro'. what we thought of was to include the basic requirements for a
student of say MCA, BE, BTech students."

Members of the small but determined group kept going at the idea, even if
getting work done on a voluntary basis can sometimes take longer than
expected. The team includes: Animesh, Warren, Trevor, Sameer, Navin,
Nagarjuna, and Philip. 

To check out more about this group, visit: 
http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/search/college-distro/

Meanwhile, other Free Software campaigners like E. Krishnan of the FSF-India
also offers help in creating a 'custom GNU/Linux for our schools with
educational and office tools".  This, he says, would try to also create a
custom GNU/Linux for Indian schools, offer material for training school
teachers in GNU/Linux, and select and document good educational software.

E Krishnan mentions a recent meeting with the Director of Public
Instructions in Kerala, and the latter had shown "considerable interest" in
introducing Free Software in schools. "The idea is to introduce it as part
of IT curriculum in high school classes. We will have to do some work
regarding this," says he.

Says he: "I am in the process of making a single CD Debian GNU/Linux with a
graphical cum console installer written by Progeny Debian, Inc (called PGI
http://hackers.progeny.com/pgi/). PGI is very very easy to use. I have
started experimenting with it."

Rajkumar S <raj2569@yahoo.com> of the FSF-India has also been debating the
role of GNU/Linux in schools. He suggests: "Take a look at
http://www.ofset.org/freeduc/. This site has several programs for education,
If some one can choose a single program and post a short summary after
reviewing it we can make a list of educational software to include in the
disto." (ENDS)

--
Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783
BYTESFORALL www.bytesforall.org  * GNU-LINUX http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
Email fred@bytesforall.org * SMS 9822122436@attcell.net * Saligao Goa India
Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference