I really enjoyed my first visit to the Hertfordshire Linux User Group, what with meeting new people and learning
a some neat things about the GIMP.
But the next meeting lacked any structure and although I had fun and we discussed all sorts of things, I felt that the power of the LUG should not go to waste.
I toyed with a number of ideas, mostly aimed towards open source development, but everyone has their own favorite coding language, style etc and of course not everyone is (or wants to be) a programmer.
Thinking of something everyone could enjoy that would be useful/educational was tough, but I finally settled on a Linux Pub Quiz.
The first thing I pictured was the quiz master flipping pages in a note book over the edge of the desk, keeping score. Not very exciting, so my first job was to write a score board system.
This web page was run from a Ubuntu live CD on an aging laptop. The plan being to have the screen facing the audience and for the quiz master to use an extra USB keyboard for control.
It worked out even better than expected as one of the LUG regulars brought a projector and we had the display on the wall. The score board system allows for two named teams (the code should easily allow for more) to receive +1 and -1 score changes. The -1 turned out to be very useful as I made a couple of mistakes and had to readjust the values on the fly.
Here follows the quiz with some 'fixes' and some 'notes', the answers are shown but as white on white text, use your mouse to highlight them. Or there is a button at the bottom of tha page that will show all.
In what year did Linus start work on Linux ? (opening question, gains point, next question to opposing team.)
1991 (summer) Which team could guess the closest.
In what year did Linus release Linux 1.0 ?
1994 Nice follow on question
What is the package management system for Redhat and what does that acronym stand for ?
Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor The answer was available to anyone playing the Computer O-quiz
You get one point for identifying each correct argument but loose a point for each incorrect answer. ls -larth
l List view
a All files including those preceded by a dot
r Reverse sort
t sort by modification Time
h Human readable
I use this handy combination a lot
what is the web address for the Linux Documentation Project
www.tldp.org good place to start looking for information
what is LPIC Level 1 ?
Linux Professional Institute Certification lowest Level i.e. me
what is the command apropos used for ?
Searches the short descriptions of the man pages I could not pronounce 'apropos'
how can you restore files found in /lost+found ?
You can not, they are file fragments and you can only use them as reference. use 'file' and 'od'
while running a console utility you hit CTRL+z, a number appears and the prompt returns, you type 'jobs' and can see your application as the only job, how can you switch back into it ?
fg short for Fore-Ground
This was in the same vein as question 12. loose a point for each incorrect answer.
What does the acronym in GTK stand for ?
Gnu Image Manipulation Program. (GIMP) I had to explain the question multiple times.
What does the command tee (T E E) do ?
Output standard out to both the terminal and a file.
BONUS
Why is called tee ? t-junction of pipes
What does TCP/IP stand for ?
Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol Everyone always gets the T part wrong
What is the new name for the network protocol analyzer previously known as Ethereal ?
wireshark
missing web law GIF/JPEG ---
never got around to adding this question Due to the web nature of the next question I had planned on having a GIF/JPEG patent question, but it never got researched.
What is Amazon.com famous for patenting ?
One Click Buy I remember trying to add this to an e-commerce site just before the suing started.
BONUS
Who are they famous for suing in this regard ? Barnes and Noble
How is text surrounded in <s> tags presented in a browser ?
strike out i.e. strike out the clue I gave was something to do with baseball
How should a double quote character be encoded for HTML and XHTML ?
" or " the XHTML was just to try and catch people out.
Name the two types of FTP and explain the main difference ?
Passive / Active - Active - server connects back to client on second port its all transparent now a days, but I remember a time ...
When visiting a web page what would an error starting with 5 followed by two digits indicate ?
Server error i.e. 501
BONUS
What about 4 followed by two digits ? Client error
At the top of script files you often have a comment starting with #! followed by the path to the respective script interpreter, what is this called ?
shebang or hashbang
In hex what does the binary value 1111 represent ?
F - 15 in decimal - for some reason I thought 15 = E yes, my watch should have given me the answer
BONUS
4 bit binary value called ? nibble 1/2 a byte.
how many bytes in kilobyte ?
1024 (wrong but get point cos it would be my answer)
Only written kb is 1024, spoken is standard kilo, 1000 This wound people up :)
BONUS
Why 1024 ? power of two, binary
vi or emacs ?
vi It's my quiz and this question rages though many forum threads
BONUS
what command searches and replaces microsoft for linux (any case) in a document.? :%s/microsoft/linux/gi
Best distribution ?
gentoo Its my quiz and this question rages though many forum threads
BONUS
using expanded options what two commands are needed to update the portage package tree and upgrade any out of date packages, chain the two together so that the upgrade only happens if the update completes successfully.? emerge --sync && emerge --update --deep world
What desktop manager is commonly represented as a cog/foot ?
KDE / GNOME
BONUS
Ignoring virtual machines, can you install both ? yes, gives libraries to run both types of application.
What is the main difference between hard-links and soft-links ?
soft-links cross filesystems. worth knowing
What program would you use to load windows binary drivers to operate WIFI hardware on Linux ?
ndiswrapper
What is the main difference between the two WIFI tools Kismet and Wellenreiter ?
Kismet is passive and Wellenreiter is active, sending detectable probes, and so gives differing results. Oh dear, I could not pronounce 'Wellenreiter'
What colour port on a sound card do you plug the speakers ?
green
BONUS
And the mic ? pink
What commercially available keyboard has a "penguin" button in place of a "windows" button (also has lots of other extra keys) ?
Disclaimer:
This page is by me for me, if you are not me then please be aware of the following
I am not responsible for anything that works or does not work including files and pages made available at www.jumpstation.co.uk
I am also not responsible for any information(or what you or others do with it) available at www.jumpstation.co.uk
In fact I'm not responsible for anything ever, so there!