Ubuntu Global Jam Mumbai Raring Cycle – Report

I conducted the first Ubuntu Global Jam Mumbai of this year (and the third so far) on Saturday 2nd March and Sunday 3rd March.

Let’s start with some Jam!

First Run – Ubuntu Touch on my Nexus 7.

Let’s not forget that this is a demo preview! (Hint: I do not stay in London)

It’s not a lock screen; it’s a Welcome Screen!

From L to R: Hardik Ghaghada, Parth Buch, Jitendra Maharshi, Purvesh Shah

From L to R: Neelesh Jain, Jitendra Maharshi, Purvesh Shah

From L to R: Me, Jitendra Maharshi, Purvesh Shah

From L to R: Me, Purvesh Shah

Activities completed:

Upgrade Jam: Jitendra Maharshi upgraded his laptop from Ubuntu 12.10 to Ubuntu Raring Ringtail. It was a breeze. We even stopped the upgrade mid-way and re-started it. It did not cause any problem and started where it left off. He filed a Ubuntu Testing report for it as well.

Installation Jam:

• Installed Ubuntu Raring Ringtail on 1 laptop and 1 pen-drive (yes, installed on the pen-drive instead of the hard-disk). Jitendra Maharshi successfully installed Ubuntu Raring Ringtail on his laptop and filed the corresponding Ubuntu Testing report. The pen-drive installation for Neelesh Jain needed some extra work as the laptop had an ATI Radeon graphics card and an in-build Intel graphics card (the one that comes with the i-series processors). I was able to get Ubuntu running on the laptop / pen-drive (by switching off Kernel Mode Setting) by using the in-built Intel graphics card. However, I did not get enough time to trouble-shoot the reason for the ATI card not being used. Maybe, it needs the proprietary drivers.
• Another laptop (Purvesh Shah‘s) had an original Windows installation in a RAID setup. So, there was no way to install on this machine without losing the original Windows installation (Linux cannot understand the RAID as the drivers are Windows-only). This was a failure.
• A 2010 MacBook Pro owned by Neelesh Jain: I tried various ways but I could not get the MacBook to boot into the Ubuntu-bootable pen-drive. I also did not have any DVDs handy. So, again, this was a failure.
• Last but not the least: I installed Ubuntu Touch on my Nexus 7 and it really felt awesome. I showed it off to all those who came, explaining how the Edge Magic works, informing them about Side-Stage (sadly, it does not work on the Nexus 7 as yet because landscape mode is not available) and more importantly, educating them about the Your-Content-Gets-Fullscreen philosophy!

Some people from my work place could not attend the event or I did not get enough time to show them Ubuntu Touch. Well, no problem. I took my Nexus 7 to work the next day and showed it off to everyone. They were all amazed!

All in all, a fun Global Jam. Until next time; see you Mumbai!