Lisbon - Week9

Brigadeiro - A Brazilian sweet mix, made of
condensed milk and butter

[25/10/2012] We have completed six weeks at IST, and are currently busy with the projects.

Two months!
I usually live a life, something similar to that of a kids' fantasy movie. While completing my second month at Lisbon, I thank Instituto Superior Técnico, KTH - Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, and the EMDC Consortium for the great EMDC program, and my special thanks goes to my mom who supports me in all my crazy decisions. :-) It's a great pleasure to study at IST from a great staff and a wonderful set of friends. I always recall the blessings of Vishaka madam, Shehan Sir, Chandana Sir, and the staff of University of Moratuwa (UOM), which always give me a very strong positive energy. The greetings and prayers of the good people are always a great strength. I still recall the 19th of August, when I said goodbye to my friends. Just taking a moment to thank everyone who are with me during all the tough times.
 
Autumn!

Right now, Lisbon is really wet and cold! Rainy days. Have a look at the web site of the weather station at IST. Thank god, it is not that cold (yet)! Anyway, not to compare with the world's coldest spots, such as Oymyakon or Grise Fiord. I guess, Stockholm will be closer. Boa noite!

Installing OMPP-0.7.1 OpenMP Profiler on Ubuntu 12.04

OMPP is a profiler for OpenMP. Installing and running it on Ubuntu is pretty straight forward, and is discussed below, assuming you already have gcc and g++ installed on your system, with OpenMP support.

Download OMPP and extract.

Set the below parameters in Makefile.defs in the ompp-0.7.1 directory.

# Set the Installation Directory (different from the extracted directory).

# root directory for the installation
# e.g., INSTDIR=$(HOME)/ompp or INSTDIR=/usr
INSTDIR=/home/pradeeban/programs/ompp-0.7.1/ompp

# Set OpenMP C/C++ compiler
# e.g., OMPCC=icc, OMPCC=pathcc, etc.
OMPCC=gcc

# Set OpenMP C/C++ compiler flag,
# e.g., OMPFLAG=-openmp, OMPFLAG=-mp
OMPFLAG=-fopenmp

# Optionally, you may also set an output directory.
OMPP_OUTDIR=$(INSTDIR)/output
Now you may 'make'.
make
make install

Set ompp to your path variable in your ~/.bashrc.
export OMPPDIR_HOME=/home/pradeeban/programs/ompp-0.7.1/ompp
export PATH=$PATH:$OMPPDIR_HOME/bin
Optionally you may also set the output format of the report into formats such as CSV.
export OMPP_OUTFORMAT=CSV

Now you should be able to compile and run your C/OpenMP application with ompp as below.

kinst-ompp gcc -fopenmp mult-good.c -o mult-good

./mult-good

 

Upon running the application, an output file with the results will be created.

mult-good.2-0.ompp.txt

Note:
You may encounter the below error when 'make install'
`lib/libompp.a' and `/home/pradeeban/programs/ompp-0.7.1/lib/libompp.a' are the same file

This is because of setting the installation as same as the extracted directory of ompp, in Makefile.defs. Installation Directory should be different from the directory that you extracted, to avoid conflicting with the lib files. I have created a directory "ompp" inside the extraction directory for this.

# root directory for the installation
# e.g., INSTDIR=$(HOME)/ompp or INSTDIR=/usr
INSTDIR=/home/pradeeban/programs/ompp-0.7.1/ompp


When compiling with kinst-ompp  in Ubuntu you may encounter the below error.
ERROR: unbalanced pragma/directive nesting 
Make sure to have the line endings of the source files to have Linux/Unix, as the above error was found when the source file contains the "Windows" line endings.

Lisbon - Weeks 7 & 8

oh, I am becoming a loyal customer of Pingo Doce.. ;)

[17/10/2012] - This fortnight went pretty fast. Probably, I am feeling so, because we are getting familiar with the lectures, the campuses, and Lisbon. 

Life at Técnico

We have two days lectures at Alameda, and two days at Taguspark. However, we feel more attached to Taguspark, as we spend more time there, where we just return home during the lunch breaks at Alameda. Returning to our apartment is not an option for Taguspark. Moreover, the shuttle travel is pretty interesting. I joined INESC-ID on the 9th of October. We got some interesting tasks to do. We got the access to campus Fenix site, and received the student identity cards, along with an email address. Portuguese classes have started at IST. It will be 40 hours, with 2.5 hrs a lesson, with 2/3 lessons a week, followed by a final exam. Seems it will be interesting.

Central Mosque of Lisboa

Mosque Visit

I have gone to many religious places including the Hindu temples, Buddhist temples, Christian and Catholic churches, and Sikh Gurudwaras. But this was my first time to go to an Islamic place of worship. The Central Mosque of Lisbon (Mesquita Central De Lisboa) is situated at S. Sebastiao, the end of red line. We loved the mosque and the environment. It was remarkable.

Life as an exchange student
Moving to another country, as an exchange student or otherwise, gives an additional advantage. It gives you a chance to change your habits. Probably, you can overcome your addictions, or simply start a life with new paradigms there. For example, you may be a night owl in your home country, and in the host country, you may be able to overcome that habit pretty easily. We can always consider the positive effects of this.

Bairro Alto

Night skyline at Bairro Alto

Bairro Alto comes to life in the night. It is where the youths of Lisbon come for a road side beer, to stay on the roads for the entire night, talking to random strangers. This place is ideal to break ice with guys and girls, from different countries. As the famous Erasmus Corner and the related bars are located in this area, this place is always full of exchange students. Chances are high for you to meet a national of your country, if you regularly pay a visit here. We had our dinner at an Indian restaurant located here, followed by a long night over the roads of Bairro Alto.

Statue of poet António Ribeiro, the "Chiado", in the Chiado Square in the night.

It is rainy days here. We are already given the project topics for the modules. oh, and just noticed how clearly Google Maps shows my apartment. :) These days may be good, bad, busy, boring, fun, confused, tiresome, sleepless, or whatever. but are surely remarkable and unforgettable. :) vê-lo na próxima semana!

Installing Ethereal on Ubuntu - 12.04

Ethereal is a popular network protocol analyzer, currently known as Wireshark. Wireshark can easily be installed on Ubuntu and the Debian based systems, using, sudo apt-get install wireshark to install, and run wireshark.

However, you can still find the binary packages of the previous versions of Ethereal. The ubuntu/debian package link is broken. But, building from source is pretty easy. Download the source and extract. Move to the root directory of ethereal, and using the below commands, you can simply build and run Ethereal, without much effort.

./configure

Install required dependencies, such as libpcap, that may be missing in your system.
sudo apt-get install libpcap-dev
Make
make
sudo make install

Confirm the installation by running ethereal from terminal.

ethereal

Lisbon - Week6

Arraial Do Tecnico at IST

[5/10/2012] - So the month of September is completed. Now into a new month.

Quotes from the lecturers!

The lectures are going pretty interesting. Some quotes from the lecturers are really wonderful and deserve sharing here.  

"If you think that way, the rocket to the moon is a glorified firework" - Our Cloud Computing Professor.
"Human nature - That is difficult to understand" and

"Small world, it's difficult to accept as being similar to reality"

- Our Peer-to-Peer Systems professor.
I am enjoying the analogies and thoughts shared by the professors at Instituto Superior Técnico.. ♥

Arraial Do Tecnico

IST by night

We had one of the most famous annual open music concerts of Lisbon, at IST last night and tonight. We enjoyed the music, and broke ice with many other local and exchange students. The night was colourful. We were listening to some nice music from José Malhoa, Dirtyphonics and a few other bands. I am becoming a fan of José Malhoa.

La Isla Bonita.. ♥

Everyone who has been an exchange student surely would have experienced the feeling of missing his country at times. This might have been considered a 'cultural shock,' but it is not. You can still miss your home country, while enjoying your stay at the host country, as an exchange student. Unlike the migration, where you usually migrate to another country with your entire family, an exchange student goes to another country, leaving his or her family and loved ones at the home country. 

The minor things that we did with our family or significant others will be truly missed. In one way, it gives some strong life experiences. Exchange programs are not just learning the course modules. It lets us learn to adopt to a new world, and to value our relationships. I surely had a nice time in Sri Lanka, the beautiful island, and truly miss it, and the memories I had there. It will be one happy day, when I return to my country, with an academic success.

2012

I smiled even during the most challenging times, and made many interesting and tough decisions single-handedly, this year. I am strong in my journey. 2012 is a beautiful year. Smile!