[dundee] WINE, Cedega, & The Gamers

[Arron Finnon]

Hi guys,

Cedega, what a topic this can turn out to be.  All though I'm not much of a 
gamer and in fairness i know less about gaming than i do about Linux (which 
i know isn't saying much), i understand the importance of this subject.  I 
do speak to a lot of people about making the full time switch from Wind0ze 
to Linux, and most of them are gamers.  They want to be able to continue 
their gaming and just feel that Linux is just too fair behind to do this, 
now I'm not saying this is the case (cause in fairness i wouldn't know, just 
what i have heard from people).

However gaming commands a large user base of people and in my belief it is 
the final big hurdle, not just the ability to handle the games them self but 
rather bad P.R attached.  I actually never hear a good word about Cedega, 
but this could be for a lot of reasons, but I'm left remember an incident 
when Cedega users where banned from a on-line game (can't remember the name 
of it, but it was big enough to make the Computering news) for a day, 
because the games company thought the Cedega users where either cheating or 
vulnerable to cheating.  This kinda issue i think scares new users wanting 
to make the Linux jump i think.  I think that a mass of new and enthusiastic 
users can't wait to ditch “sir bill of gates, and his dancing monkey boy 
palls” and stick a tux in their machines.

Too often i have been told by people, “i use XP for my games”, “if i could 
I'd get rid of windows i would” so i do believe that more time needs to be 
invested into getting games working (be it either via WINE or Cedega).  As a 
university society we have the chance to have a stall at freshers fair, 
where i imagine we'll get some computing students wanting to know more about 
Linux, and i too imagine that the issue of gaming will pop-up once again, so 
as a group of loosely associated Linux people it would be good if we could 
do a series of talks and presentations on it.  I feel that the gaming bunch 
are being exposed to Linux on such a regular basis, especially with the 
PlayStation's running Linux and the likes.

So i suppose the next step, if all of those interested in doing a Linux 
Gaming presentation email (and i have googlemail, for all of those that tut 
at me having a hotmail account) me, i have a few people that i could ask to 
help on it as well, then maybe we can do a series of presentations and 
workshops and see if we can gather a head of steam and get more new lambs 
into the fold.

Let me know what you think, oh what am i saying of course you guys will :->

Arron M Finnon;

in breaking news: Home computers are being called upon to preform many new 
functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog

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