Op 9/6/2015 om 9:25 PM schreef aaabbcc:
xboard -v
xboard version 4.8.0
configure options: prefix=/usr; datarootdir=/usr/share;
datadir=/usr/share; gamedatadir=/usr/share/games/xboard;
desktopdir=/usr/share/applications; mimedir=/usr/share/mime/packages;
iconsdir=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps;
svgiconsdir=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps;
infodir=/usr/share/info; sysconfigdir=; update_mimedb=no; NLS=yes;
GKT=no; Xaw3d=no; Xaw=yes; ptys=pipes; zippy=yes; sigint=yes
Note that from XBoard 4.8 on the GTK build is the preferred one, and the
Xaw build is sort of obsolete. (Not that this has anything to do with
the problems you report...)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,
>> I have installed both programms, gnuchess & xboard.
>>
>> If I start xboard alone, I get an error window
>> "error:first chess programm (fairymax) has finished
unexpected"
Fairy-Max is the default engine for XBoard, so normally it should work
when you have installed xboard and fairymax, and invoke xboard without
arguments.
If the fairymax package would not have been installed, I would have
expected the error message from XBoard:
failed to start first chess program fairymax on localhost: no such file
or directory
The error message you show implies that Fairy-Max was present, but
somehow crashed after XBoard's attempt to start it. This points to a
problem in the installation of the fairymax package. What happens if you
type the command "fairymax" on the command line (and if it starts then
the commands "xboard" and "protover 2" (all without the quotes))?
>> In the window "edit engine list" there are only listed:
>> GnuChess, Crafty, Fruit 2.1
>> (no fairymax).
>> Is that a bug ore a feature?
This must be a left-over from some earlier version? We distribute XBoard
4.8.0 with in its master settings file the setting
-firstChessProgramNames {fairymax
"Fruit 2.1" -fcp fruit -fUCI
"Crafty" -fcp crafty
"GNU Chess" -fcp gnuchess
}
which then becomes the default engine list. Fairy-Max is obviously there
as first item; also the order of the remaining engines is different from
what you see. This can have no effect on running Fairy-Max as default
engine, btw. It merely means that you would not be able to select
Fairy-Max through the Load 1st/2nd Engine menu items. You can check in
/etc/xboard/xboard.conf what the install default of the engine list is;
however, if that was later changed by editing the engine list, this
change is saved in the "persistence file" with user settings
(~/.xboardrc), which overrules the install defaults and is inherited
from previous XBoard versions. (Some people have long engine lists, and
would not want to lose those when they upgrade XBoard...) So I am pretty
sure that there the list is defined as what you actually see. The
question is only how it got to be different from the master settings file.
>>
>> If I load the engine "crafty", I get the error message
>> "error:first chess programm (crafty) has finished unexpected"
Again, this is strange. If you do have Crafty installed, "xboard -fcp
crafty", or selecting Crafty from the Engine menu, should work. And if
you don't have it, you should get another error message. Again, what
happens if you run Crafty from a terminal (in the same way as fairymax
above)? This error message points to a problem in the engine, where
XBoard managed to find the engine binary and start it, but then receives
an 'End Of File' when listening to the engine, indicating that the
engine somehow died. There is nothing XBoard can do to prevent an engine
from committing suicide. To know exactly what goes on between XBoard and
the engine you can start XBoard with the extra argument -debug: "xboard
-fcp crafty -debug". It will then create a file xboard.debug in the
current directory, which contains a complete log of everything the
engine and XBoard said to each other. Sometimes this points out why an
engine died, if it is friendly enough to print a reason before doing so.
(E.g. if its hash-table memory requirement exceeds the amount of memory
your system has available.)
>>
>> If I load "fruit" ,I get the error messAGE
>> "error:first chess programm (polyglot -noini -ec "fruit"
>> -ed "." -uci NalimovCache=4 -pg ShowTbHits=true)
>> has finished unexpected"
Well, Fruit is a UCI engine, so it can only run through the Polyglot
adapter. So you must have the polyglot package installed (and obviously
the fruit package) to be able to run Fruit. Again, it is strange
Polyglot, which as far as XBoard is concerned is the engine, seems to
start and then die. Polyglot is usually very helpful in popping up error
messages as to why it exits, when it experiences a fatal error. But I
guess if we can diagnose and solve the problems with Fairy-Max and
Crafty, this one will disappear as well.
>> Loading "Gnu Chess", I can play chess against the computer.
That GNU Chess works, and not the others, makes it extra strange. In any
case it suggests that there is nothing wrong with XBoard, and that the
problems are with the other engines. Or it could be that XBoard is
somehow not getting the proper error response from the system when it
tries to start a non-present program, and therefore only discovers
starting it failed when the program it thinks it has started refuses to
send anything to XBoard (because in reality it was never there at all).
>> Without loading an engine xboard ist only a chess rule checker.
>>
Indeed, that is somewhat correct. Still, many people use it in this mode
to view and edit PGN game files. And many people also use it without
engine as an ICS client, to play games at freechess.org or chessclub.com.
>> Are "GnuChess, Crafty, Fruit 2.1" the chess engines?
These are some of the more popular Chess engines, which is why we
configured them in the default list. Other engines available under Linux
are Phalanx, Stockfish, HoiChess, Sjaak II,, Sjeng (and of course
Fairy-Max). And I am sure I must be forgetting some. Virtually every
open-source engine can be compiled for Linux, as engines are usually not
very platform dependent. Many closed-source engines are offered as Linux
binaries for some architectures (usually i386 and amd64). There are also
many engines that only play variants other than international Chess,
such as MaxQi, GNU Shogi, Bonanza, HaChu, Leonidas. And most engines
that are only available as Windows binaries (e.g. Houdini, Rybka) can be
run under wine, by using -fcp "wine ENGINENAME.exe".
All engines have to be installed separately, however. Nopackaging system
I know does recognize a dependence between XBoard and engine or adapter
packages. This because it is possible to use XBoard without an engine,
as game viewer or ICS client. So at best they 'recommend' fairymax.
After installing an engine, you would still have to "register" it with
XBoard, (which basically means adding it to the engine ist either
through editing or through the Load 1st/2nd Engine dialog) in order to
be able to select the engine through the menus. XBoard 4.8 supports a
mechanism where it automatically adds newly installed engines to the
engine list, and this would remove the necessity to have a default
engine list with engines that might not be installed. This, however,
requires cooperation from the engine packages, which should make their
presence known to the system according to the plugin standard. And not
many engines do that yet. Once the most important engines comply with
this standard we could simply leave the default engine list empty, and
engines will appear in it automatically when they are installed.
GNU Chess 6 is basically the same as Fruit 2.1 anyway, with a native
XBoard interface rather than UCI. But we left it in the default engine
list to provide an example of how a UCI engine can be used.
Regards Dieter
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