Winboard Forum

We just made a "developers release" of a beta version of WinBoard / XBoard, which we intend to release as version 4.5.2 in a few weeks. The sources can be obtained at the usual place:

ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/

This is mainly an XBoard release; on WinBoard practically nothing has been changed. The only notable changes there are:
*) A bug that made WinBoard ignore the game and position files in the first game of a match started through the menu (Mode -> Machne Match) is fixed
*) WinBoard now makes a distinction between -string, -file and -path option features, by a ccompanying with no browser button, or one that invokes a file or a folder browser, respectively. The previous version put a file-browse butten with all three in the Engine -> Engine Settings dialog.

For the rest there were a few very minor bug fixes affecting only variants, nps=0 TC mode and an unintended translation in the debug file.

For XBoard there is a huge difference with 4.5.1, though: all the new menu dialogs (board / sound / load / save / match / general / ICS options) have now been included in the stable branch, the file-browse dialog has been improved to select by file type, a Machine Match item has been added to the Mode menu. In addition the Adjudications, Common Engine and New Variant dialogs have been improved, using or adding spin controls. There also is an (experimental) counterpart to the WinBoard ICS context menu: the ICS Text Menu dialog in the View menu.

For extended descriptions and screenshots, see http://hgm.nubati.net/news.html .

XBoard users are invited to test this version.

I would like to try this, but I have no clue about how to update/replace the existing installed version

In principle updating should never be a problem: after downloading and unpacking the source tar ball, you can install it by giving the commands

./configure
sudo make install

(plus your password). That should do it.

The only case where you would have problems is when you already had a newer beta or experimental version installed that had options which the version you now try to install hasn't. In that case your previous version has saved these options in the .xboardrc file in your home directory, and the newly installed version will try to read that same file, and encounter the options it doesn't know. This makes it exit with an error message. You then have the choice to remove the .xboardrc file altogether (losing all your customized settings, and reverting to the installation defaults), or editing this file to remove all the lines with offending options.

Tuvoc wrote:I would like to try this, but I have no clue about how to update/replace the existing installed version

A good start will be to read the file INSTALL included with the distribution.

Hope it helps, regards!!!

matematiko wrote:
A good start will be to read the file INSTALL included with the distribution.

Hope it helps, regards!!!

When I actually download it I'll take a look then

Compiled fine on Fedora 14 64 bits.
I tested the match menu
Works fine.Not all options entered seem to be saved.
Filenames for startpositions and position-index -1 or -2 (and current index as well,i guess)are forgotten.

By the way,the fileselector sometimes behaves erratic.
Often I get the idea it interprets a single mouseclick as a double one,I
don't get to see all items in the folder and have to scroll several times up and down the list
before they appear.

Best
Fonzy

H.G.Muller wrote:In principle updating should never be a problem: after downloading and unpacking the source tar ball, you can install it by giving the commands

./configure
sudo make install

(plus your password). That should do it.

The only case where you would have problems is when you already had a newer beta or experimental version installed that had options which the version you now try to install hasn't. In that case your previous version has saved these options in the .xboardrc file in your home directory, and the newly installed version will try to read that same file, and encounter the options it doesn't know. This makes it exit with an error message. You then have the choice to remove the .xboardrc file altogether (losing all your customized settings, and reverting to the installation defaults), or editing this file to remove all the lines with offending options.

Hello I tried installing version Xboard version 4.5.1 using the above commands and I get this message after writing sudo make install: " make: *** No rule to make target `install'. Stop."

I am new to Linux and trying under Linux Mint 10.

Help appreciated.

F. Bluemers wrote:By the way,the fileselector sometimes behaves erratic.
Often I get the idea it interprets a single mouseclick as a double one,I
don't get to see all items in the folder and have to scroll several times up and down the list
before they appear.

What you complain about is probably the standard behavior of scroll bars in X-applications. This is really weird when you are used to Windows scroll bars. As far as I could figure out, "normal" behavior (i.e. grab the "thumb", and move it) only occurs when you use the middle mouse button. (Which is kind of a problem, as I have none... Pressing both buttons simultaneously is supposed to emulate it, but this is so critical that I almost never succeed in doing it.)

The left and right buttons move it it steps, and do not grab the thumb. How big the step is, is determined by where you click the bar. If you click it close to the top, you make small steps (right-click = up, left-click = down). Near the bottom it makes huge strides.

This is really awful (although a middle button would probably save the day), but Linux users are supposed to be used to it.

[Edit] I just made a version in my popups branch that couples the mouse wheel to scroll action when you point to the vertical scroll bars. This really makes life alt more bearable for those who have no middle button, but do have a mouse wheel. (My Ubuntu treats the right edge of the touch pad of my laptop as a mouse wheel!)

tano-urayoan wrote:Hello I tried installing version Xboard version 4.5.1 using the above commands and I get this message after writing sudo make install: " make: *** No rule to make target `install'. Stop."

I am new to Linux and trying under Linux Mint 10.

This is weird; it sounds like you have a defective Makefile. (The Makefile is supposed to be generated by ./configure, so perhaps that ended with an error message.)

Can you post the output you get on the ./configure + make commands?

H.G.Muller wrote:This is weird; it sounds like you have a defective Makefile. (The Makefile is supposed to be generated by ./configure, so perhaps that ended with an error message.)

Can you post the output you get on the ./configure + make commands?

Sure Dr. here it is :

Code: Select all

checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking for suffix of executables...
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
checking for style of include used by make... GNU
checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3
checking whether gcc and cc understand -c and -o together... yes
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for library containing strerror... none required
checking for flex... no
checking for lex... no
checking for remsh... no
checking for rsh... rsh
checking for makeinfo... no
Please install "makeinfo"


Also if I use make instead of sudo make install I get the message from the last line please install makeinfo.

Thank you for the help

Indeed, you obviously lack makeinfo. So trying

sudo apt-get install makeinfo

might be a good idea. You might get other errors during the configure when you get past that, of course.

Tano,
A standard installl of Ubuntu (and therefore probably Mint too, since it is based on Unbuntu) lacks quite a few libraries/packages or whatever you call them. I installed on two machines at various times, and by looking at the error messages each time managed to figure it out. Compiling, installing and trying to make sense of the error messages is not that easy for a Linux beginner. Perseverance paid off for me but only after trial and error

H.G.Muller wrote:Indeed, you obviously lack makeinfo. So trying

sudo apt-get install makeinfo

might be a good idea. You might get other errors during the configure when you get past that, of course.

Hello again Dr. after trying the sudo apt-get install makeinfo I got this message:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install makeinfo
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package makeinfo


On the folder of Xboard I found Makefile.am and Makefile.ini. Do any of them help?

Tuvoc wrote:Tano,
A standard installl of Ubuntu (and therefore probably Mint too, since it is based on Unbuntu) lacks quite a few libraries/packages or whatever you call them. I installed on two machines at various times, and by looking at the error messages each time managed to figure it out. Compiling, installing and trying to make sense of the error messages is not that easy for a Linux beginner. Perseverance paid off for me but only after trial and error

Thank you for the encouragement Tuvoc, the problem this is all new to me, I don't know which package to install as there are thousands of them and I do not know what I am searching

I used Googleto look for "install makeinfo", and found some forum post that says that "makeinfo" for Ubuntu is in the package "texinfo". So

sudo apt-get install texinfo

should do it then. If you are working from a virgin install of Ubuntu, you are likely to need someother packages too, such as the X11 and Xaw libtaries. But if you get past the makeinfo error, ./configure should tell you that.

A command worth trying is "sudo apt-get build-dep xboard"
This will install every package needed to build the version of xboard that Ubuntu offers. (That version is old, but will depend on mostly the same things.)

Justin Blanchard wrote:A command worth trying is "sudo apt-get build-dep xboard"
This will install every package needed to build the version of xboard that Ubuntu offers. (That version is old, but will depend on mostly the same things.)

Hello Mr Blanchard I tried that and got this message: "

Code: Select all

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list


"

Following Dr Muller suggestion I could get the makeinfo file but got the error about xboard requires X window system header files and libraries.

One question if I install the debian package from here will I get all the necessary packages to install later version as 4.5 and laters?

tano-urayoan wrote:Hello Mr Blanchard I tried that and got this message: "

Code: Select all

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list


Oops. There's a preparatory step I forgot about. Instead of relying on that command, I'll just tell you myself what you'll need:
sudo apt-get install xaw3dg-dev libxaw7-dev texinfo flex
This will also fix the "X window system header files and libraries" you need. I'm not sure whether you'll need flex.

tano-urayoan wrote:One question if I install the debian package from here will I get all the necessary packages to install later version as 4.5 and laters?

You will get all the packages needed to run a pre-compiled xboard, but not what you need to compile one yourself.

Justin Blanchard wrote:
Oops. There's a preparatory step I forgot about. Instead of relying on that command, I'll just tell you myself what you'll need:
sudo apt-get install xaw3dg-dev libxaw7-dev texinfo flex
This will also fix the "X window system header files and libraries" you need. I'm not sure whether you'll need flex.

Thank you again for your help Mr Blanchard now after installing the required libraries and running sudo make install I got this lines

Code: Select all

test -z "/usr/local/bin" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/local/bin"
  /usr/bin/install -c xboard '/usr/local/bin'
test -z "/usr/local/etc" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/local/etc"
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 xboard.conf '/usr/local/etc'
test -z "/usr/local/share/applications" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/local/share/applications"
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 xboard.desktop '/usr/local/share/applications'
test -z "/usr/local/share/games/xboard/" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/local/share/games/xboard/"
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 pixmaps/wood_d.xpm pixmaps/wood_l.xpm '/usr/local/share/games/xboard/'
test -z "/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps"
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 xboard.png '/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps'
test -z "/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps"
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 xboard.svg '/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps'
test -z "/usr/local/share/info" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/local/share/info"
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./xboard.info '/usr/local/share/info'
 install-info --info-dir='/usr/local/share/info' '/usr/local/share/info/xboard.info'
This is not dpkg install-info anymore, but GNU install-info
See the man page for ginstall-info for command line arguments
test -z "/usr/local/share/man/man6" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/local/share/man/man6"
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 'xboard.man' '/usr/local/share/man/man6/xboard.6'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/tano-urayoan/Downloads/xboard-4.5.1'

What I am doing wrong now?

and again very grateful for your help

tano-urayoan wrote:What I am doing wrong now?

As far as I can tell, nothing. Does xboard not work now?