[FusionComm] Introductions

[Sam Spilsbury]

On 8/16/07, Kristian Lyngstøl <kristian at bohemians.org> wrote:
> All though most of us know each other at some level by now, we all
> come from two different projects, therefor, I'd like to start a round
> of self introductions for everyone who's involved with the Compiz
> Fusion project so we can get to know each other better.
>
> Tell us a little bit about what your interest in the project have been
> up until now, what you've done, want to do, and maybe what you do
> professionally. I'll start it off :)


Hmm.

I first started off fiddling with linux about a year and a half ago
when a friend shoved a liveCD in my computer which he thought was
running Knoppix. Turns out it was running the security tools
distribution, with fluxbox, and a really outdated version of firefox.
That really put me off. However, I was still curious, so I tried to
decipher how to get the knoppix website in english and downloaded the
*actual* knoppix and tried it out. I immidiately loved it and have
never really looked back. I installed kubuntu, then ditched it a month
later for openSUSE because of their seemingly bad package management
and somewhat terrible X support, unaware that openSUSE's package
management was a whole lot worse.

I first got introduced to Compiz around the time when Novell was
ranting and raving about compiz on SLED 10. I looked at it, but
thought it wasn't too great and that I wasn't missing out on much.
Then I had a look at some YouTube footage and my jaw dropped. I just
HAD compiz after that.

This is my only *good* computer, and after it broke and I had to send
it in for repairs _again_ , I decided to install openSUSE on it,
considering that I was now pretty well experienced with this stuff.
After installing, I enabled Xgl - praying for the best - my X Server
seemed to work, I wobbled a window and I think I fainted. I ended up
playing around with the software for another 4-5 hours.

I first tried compiz-quinn after that, but due to the damage problems
and the fact that it completly messed up my GNOME installation, I was
put off until the release of beryl, which  I thought was a great
improvement.

I've always been interested in journalism, public relations and the
media, so I decided to take up the role of writing the "This Week in
Compiz Fusion" blog when I got the chance, as a way of giving back to
the project. Even though I am no longer the main writer of the
'official' blog - for many reasons you have seen before - I still
can't wait to join the support team on the forums and help out as many
people as I can, as well as writing a whole bunch of website and wiki
articles.

Right now, I'm also very interested in computer science, and am
figuring out how to learn C. My biggest passion is certainly public
speaking and debating.