XBOARD

[matrix101]

Hello!

I just installed opensuse and now Im in network.I downloaded the sources of xboard from here http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/ and saved the file. Now I have xboard but when I click it it opens some files but not the chessboard !? Does anybody know what I should do?

Thx

[H.G.Muller]

Source code has to be compiled, before it can do something. Not sure what you click (the folder that contains the source-code files?). But after you extracted the files from the tar ball that you can download from GNU, you should open a terminal window, change directory to the place with the source files, and type

./configure
make
sudo make install

If is complains there is no 'configure', you must start with

./autogen.sh

before completing the above sequence. If during configure it complains that there is some software missing, you should obtain that software with

sudo apt-get install PACKAGENAME

and try ./configure again. Note that to build the GTK version you should say

./configure --with-gtk

as by default it would build with Xaw.

[Ron Murawski]

... before completing the above sequence. If during configure it complains that there is some software missing, you should obtain that software with

sudo apt-get install PACKAGENAME

and try ./configure again.

OpenSUSE does not use 'apt' for package management, it uses 'zypper'. Most zypper commands are similar to apt commands. It is possible that

sudo zypper install PACKAGENAME

will work.

Ron

[Ron Murawski]

OpenSUSE has a one-click install of XBoard available here:
http://software.opensuse.org/package/xboard

The version number is 4.7.2

Ron

[matrix101]

Thx.

I still need to extract the xboard files before typing a command in the terminal window?

[matrix101]

... And also, how can I change directory to the source files in the terminal window?

[matrix101]

Now i used the command "sudo zypper install xboard-4.7.2.tar.gz" and after that the terminal window showed: Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
'xboard-4.7.2.tar.gz' not found in package names. Trying capabilities.
No provider of 'xboard-4.7.2.tar.gz' found.
Resolving package dependencies...

What should I do?

[Ron Murawski]

If you use the one-click install everything is taken care of for you automatically. You do not have to extract or compile or worry about changing directories.

I haven't used openSUSE in a while, but my recollection is that when you choose the one-click install file there will be a dialog box that pops up and one of the choices is to install the package. If you choose that option, XBoard will be installed for you. Keep in mind that after XBoard is installed there will not be a new program icon created on the desktop -- as long as the program was successfully installed, you can create a desktop shortcut to the binary or you can run it from a command prompt.

For openSUSE package installations there is a difference between rpm files and tar.gz files. You will need to learn about the difference. If you are familiar with Windows, you can think of the openSUSE rpm file as similar to a msi file. The tar.gz file is a zipped file of the program source files and build instructions -- it requires more knowledge to install than a rpm file.

From your questions it is apparent to me that you are new to Linux. OpenSUSE is not the easiest Linux distro for a newcomer. You might be better served with a distro like Mint, where almost every package is available directly from the Mint repositories. In your case the XBoard package is not available from the openSUSE repositories and this is what is causing you the trouble.

Ron

[matrix101]

Thx

Now I installed xboard from here http://software.opensuse.org/package/xboard and chose "unstable packages" and clicked openSUSE 13.1 and installed games 4.7.2 from the list. Should I also install education 4.7.2 to run the xboard? However now I can open xboard but it complains failed to start first chess program fairymax on localhost: fairymax: No such file or directory

[H.G.Muller]

You will also have to install the fairymax package to avoid that message, as Fairy-Max is XBoard's default engine, so giving the command "xboard" is equivalent to "xboard -fcp fairymax". Of course you could start XBoard without engine as game viewer ("xboard -ncp"), or to connect with an ICS (e.g. "xboard fics"), or with another engine ("xboard -fcp crafty", but then of course you should have Crafty installed).

[matrix101]

Ok

I would like to install stockfish4 and found these binaries https://www.dropbox.com/sh/75gzfgu7qo94 ... ckfish%204 should I choose android.zip (for opensuse)?. After that I would try this command in the terminal: xboard -fUCI -fcp stockfish -sUCI -scp stockfish

and after installing polyglot : sudo zypper install xboard polyglot stockfish
for the adapter

[H.G.Muller]

'android' doesn't sound like it is intended for Linux...

[matrix101]

Hello!



I downloaded stockfish DD source code from here: http://stockfishchess.org/ and polyglot 1.4 from here: http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/PolyGlot.html
After that I extracted all the files so when I can go downloads > polyglot_14 > polyglot_linux. If I uderstood right only the file polyglot_linux is needed for xboard and doesn`t need to be compiled or installed unless you want to make a change in the program. I entered this command in the terminal window to run polyglot with xboard:

xboard -fd 'ini_dir' -fcp 'polyglot engine.ini'



After that it opened xboard and there was: error! failed to start first chess program polyglot engine.ini on localhost: ini_dir:
No such file or directory. I thought if the system can`t enter downloads > polyglot_14 > polyglot_linux.


a better solution is to provide a directory when launching
PolyGlot, e.g. with the "-fd" XBoard option above. The directory
should be where the INI file is.

So I should maybe create a directory so that xboard can find polyglot? How is that done?

I compiled stockfish using the command:
cd ~/Downloads/stockfish-dd-src/src and then: "make" to access the make file. After that typed: make build ARCH=x86-64
After that I installed with the command: "sudo make install"

Next on terminal window: xboard -fUCI -fcp stockfish -sUCI -scp stockfish and again: Failed to start first chess program

polyglot -noini -ec "stockfish" -ed "." -uci NalimovCache=4 on localhost: polyglot: No such file or directory.

I think my Unix implementation does not search the current directory as PATH. How could I change it? Thx




thx

[H.G.Muller]

No Linux version I know allows you to execute files in the current directory without typing ./ in front of it, even when it is in the PATH.

The Polyglot you are using might be a stone-age version, and I doubt it will work with the -fUCI option. The recommanded Polyglot for use with XBoard is obtainable from http://hgm.nubati.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi ('learn' branch). You would have to compile and install it like XBoard, though. But if you do that, it should also end up in a place where it is in your path.

The command

xboard -fcp fruit -fUCI

should work then without the need for you to do anything else (presuming you have installed Fruit, of course; you could replace that by any other UCI engine).

[matrix101]

Ok now I have stockfish and polyglot running in xboard. I tried to connect to ics with the following command:

> xboard -fcp 'polyglot stockfishdd.ini' -scp 'polyglot stockfishdd.ini' -ics -icshost chessclub.com
Warning: Couldn't open icsLogon file (checked .icsrc and /home/user/.icsrc).
Welcome to the INTERNET CHESS CLUB

This fails for unknown reason? I can still run stockfishdd with xboard using command: xboard -fcp 'polyglot stockfishdd.ini' -scp 'polyglot stockfishdd.ini'
And connect to ics: -ics -icshost chessclub.com

For some reason, however, can`t connect to ics with stockfishdd loaded.

[H.G.Muller]

You should add the -zp ('zippyPlay') option when you want to run engine and connect to ICS at the same time.

The message about the .isrc is not important. It just mentions that you do not have an automatic logon script, which means you have to log on by hand.

[matrix101]

Thx now working

[matrix101]

xboard -fcp 'polyglot stockfishdd.ini' -scp 'polyglot stockfishdd.ini' -zp -ics -icshost chessclub.com

[H.G.Muller]

Yes, that would do it. The -scp part is superfluous, as in ICS mode you use only one engine. You can add " -icshelper timestamp" to become immune to network lag, if you downloaded "timestamp" from ICC and installed it in a directory that is in your PATH. Personally I would write

xboard -fcp stockfish -fUCI -zp -ics -icshost chessclub.com -icshelper timeseal

(assuming Stockfish was installed under the command 'stockfish').

[matrix101]

Hi

I have now collected some png files from chesstempo http://chesstempo.com/ and would like to construct an opening book of them. I would like that in some openings the engine selects my book moves only for white or black. Do I need to create black and white book separately to achieve that? Now as far as I understand I need to use polyglot to make an opening book out of these png files. I found some instructions from the "readme" of polyglot however they werew quite complicated. If someone would have knowledge about this would be nice. I found some instructions here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=49820