[kwlug disc.] Kyle Spaans' Proposed Meeting Topics:

[Kyle Spaans]

Hello all,
I'll make sure to write these out on the "Meeting Suggestions Page" on
the website, but I thought I'd leave a message here as well, if only
for redundancy.

Topics:

 --->"Windows Vista vs Linux [no distro in particular] - Clash of the GUIs"
The only thing that really in my capacity to do: a demo comparing the
fancy effects of the Windows Vista Aero Glass mode to XGL/Compiz [XGL
being an X Server architecture that takes advantage of the hardware
accelerated graphics of today, and Compiz being a "compositing window
manager", see Wikipedia for an explanation,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compositing_window_manager]. I don't
think it would take me more than half of a meeting to go over most of
the fancy graphical features of each GUI system. If you are bored NOW,
search Youtube for XGL/Compiz, and you'll get some fancy demo videos.


 --->"Linux Gaming - What are your options?"
I think I'll try and keep the theme of the talk central to "what are
my options?". My research so far has told me: Native Linux Games [e.g.
VegaStrike], older games that have been Open-Sourced and ported to
Linux, games using OpenGL that are more easily ported to Linux,
Transgaming's Cedega [no, it's not a Windows emulator] to play most of
the latest games, id Software [take your pick, Quake I/II/III/IV, Doom
/III, RTCW: Enemy territory, QuakeWars [hopefully very soon]. I'll
likely show a quick selection of the games I play, and how I got them
installed in Linux. Also, I'll go over some "theory", comparing games
that are developed natively for Linux, and those that are merely
ported, and why you might expect lower performance from a game in
Linux versus a game in Windows. I don't really see this taking much
more than half of a meeting either.

My ETA for these would be sometime in the summer, after I come back
from my Winter Co-op Work Term. I'd have to bring my [luckily SSF]
desktop to the meeting.