[Tugindia] What should be on the CD?

Duvvuri Venu Gopal venugopal_duvvuri at rediffmail.com
Wed Jan 27 13:40:18 CET 2010


Hello All

This is in response to the earlier mails regarding what programs should be given on the CD. For the last one week I am  on tour so this delayed response.

I regularly conduct LaTeX classes for Ph.D. Scholars in Banaras Hindu University. In addition I am giving my services to other Institutions also on request - one such recent one is the DTU workshop on MatLab and LaTeX. Another one is in pipeline at Banasthali Vidyapeeth, Rajasthan.

I give to the participants the following (all are Windows based):

1)  A CD/DVD containing ProTeXt (latest version as far as possible).
2)  A copy of LaTeX Tutorials of the Indian TeX Users Group 
    written for the TUG Conference held at Trivandrum).
3)  A copy of Mathmode by Herbert Voss (for Mathematics /
    Statistics students only)
4)  Another CD containing the following software 

(a) Wbibdb and JabRef - for creating bibliography databases
(b) OpenOffice (Why?) - it installs Java required for JabRef and 
    other programmes. The Draw programme in OpenOffice can be used 
    to create figures for inclusion in LaTeX Documents (it has
    option to save the drawing in eps or pdf format)
(c) LaTeX Draw - for creating drawings - you can directly 
    incorporate the code generated in the tex file or save the
    figure in eps or pdf format and then use it.
(d) TpX - Same as above - it has facilities to touchup the graphics
    generated by Matlab etc software.
(e) Geogebra
(f) Lots of documents available on the net - like Mathmode of 
    Voss, LaTeX Tutorials (screen version), LaTeX Symbols,
    some introductory
    lectures (one is mine, another is MfWL and a third one by 
    some other) in slides format.
(g) Videos - Math into LaTeX (downloaded from net)
(h) I also introduce them to GNU Octave/GNU Plot for plotting
    data.
(i) I show some pictures created using Tikz / PSTricks / Metapost 
    of late Asymptote. Many thrilled after seeing these 
    beautiful 2D / 3D figures and movies.
(j) Dia

etc. etc.

In addition one of the class is dedicated to explain the TDS - TeX directory system - where to place which file (if a new package is downloaded) and where to find the documentation of the package. It helps the newbies a lot.

.....

Recently I downloaded Knoppix 6.2 and it has Kile, LyX and TeX/LaTeX on it. But I don't know whether all packages are there or not.

I have not yet used this one to teach LaTeX, but it has some good software like GNU Plot, Maxima, OpenOffice 3.0, Dia etc. etc.


Hope it will be of use to you all

D. Venu Gopal

I use OpenOffice 3.0!
Do you!!


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