Linux Chess Programs! Which one is the Best?

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Date: 12 Dec 2005 12:57:19
From: BEM
Subject: Linux Chess Programs! Which one is the Best?

Hey Everyone,

I am parsing through the mountain of sites and ebooks on Linux Chess
programs and I am a little over whelmed. I currently have Knights
installed on Ubuntu running KDE. I am using the GNUChess engine to play
games against the computer. I signed up for a freechess.org but have
not played a game yet. I need to read more about how that works. The
telnet session opens but i have no idea how to start a game yet.
Anyway I would like to start a discussion on which programs are better
and why. I like Chessmaster 10 because i think the puzzles and training
are usefull for me. However its for windows :(. I have thought about
trying to get it to run in wine but am not sure how to install stuff so
wine can run it. Need to do more research on that as well.
Knights has a nicer look than the other Linux Chess programs I have
tried but still seems like a hassle to get it working.
Anyway I was wondering what programs people were using and why.
There are also a couple of pay sites on the internet that claim to have
rated play. I dont understand all of this yet either.
to provide a little more background I have not played chess seriously
since 1993 or 94 when i was a USCF player in college. My dhter
joined the chess club at school and I have rekindled my interest in the
sport. However finding people to play at my level (novice but more
advanced than most 9 year old players) is nigh impossible. So online
chess is the way to go.

thanks

Date: 13 Dec 2005 13:02:28
From: BEM
Subject: Re: Linux Chess Programs! Which one is the Best?

so i tried out scid it is pretty cool. I have not had any luck with
crafty yet. I did get Jin to run and am using it to play on free chess.
I am playing there as bugeyemonster.
So my new topic is is chessclub.com worth the money? I thought I saw
something about a online chess membership that included a USCF
membership and subscription to chess life. But I can not find that now.
:(

thanks

Date: 13 Dec 2005 06:35:27
From: BEM
Subject: Re: Linux Chess Programs! Which one is the Best?

thanks for all the info these posts have been very helpful. I have a
great deal of reading to do :)

Date: 13 Dec 2005 04:12:34
From:
Subject: Re: Linux Chess Programs! Which one is the Best?

Im using mostly SCID and XBoard. Java based Jin and Jose are also ok.
For chess engine i use Toga and Fruit.

Note, that we have also commercial Shredder available for Linux, it
includes both engine and gui.

Date: 13 Dec 2005 10:42:03
From: David Richerby
Subject: Re: Linux Chess Programs! Which one is the Best?

BEM <brady.maxwell@gmail.com > wrote:
> I signed up for a freechess.org but have not played a game yet. I need
> to read more about how that works. The telnet session opens but i have
> no idea how to start a game yet.

Don't connect to FICS with telnet -- use one of the interfaces. I've not
used knights so I can't help you with that but xboard and eboard can
connect to FICS. Of these, you'll probably find eboard easier to use.

Once you've connected, typing "help" should give you most of the help you
need to get yourself up and running.

Dave.

--
David Richerby Solar-Powered Gigantic Hi-Fi (TM):
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ it's like a music system but it's huge
and it doesn't work in the dark!

Date: 13 Dec 2005 02:07:52
From: jonathan.beckett
Subject: Re: Linux Chess Programs! Which one is the Best?

Although the initial learning curve is a little steeper, XBoard and a
FICS membership are really good things to have.

You can download the binaries of various chess engines and plug them
into XBoard too - giving you a "standard" board for playing against the
computer. The one downside to this is most of the chess engines
available don't have "levels" as such - you end up looking for bad
engines, or restricting them to a number of moves ahead (ply).

A while ago I looked at some of the FICS clients for Linux and was
really impressed - EBoard is particularly nice looking. I always end up
going back to XBoard though.

Don't be intimidated by the command syntax to fire XBoard up with
various engines, time controls and options - once you'ce cracked it for
one, you can just make shortcuts.

Date: 14 Dec 2005 09:24:28
From: Alexander Wagner
Subject: Re: Linux Chess Programs! Which one is the Best?

On 2005-12-13, jonathan.beckett <jonathan.beckett@gmail.com > wrote:

Hi!

> You can download the binaries of various chess engines and plug them
> into XBoard too - giving you a "standard" board for playing against the
> computer. The one downside to this is most of the chess engines
> available don't have "levels" as such - you end up looking for bad
> engines, or restricting them to a number of moves ahead (ply).

Actually this is for me one of the nice features of the
Shredder Engine. You can actually have levels as you
can limit it's ELO-strenth. See
http://theorie.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de/~arwagner/chess/shredder.html
for the setup. Including preset engine files for all
personalities that come with Shredder itself ready to use
with xboard.

> A while ago I looked at some of the FICS clients for Linux and was
> really impressed - EBoard is particularly nice looking. I always end up
> going back to XBoard though.

Dito. Jin has some nice features for watching several games
though. (Well, it opens multiple windows. Don't fiddle out
how to do something similar with xboard yet.)

> Don't be intimidated by the command syntax to fire XBoard up with
> various engines, time controls and options - once you'ce cracked it for
> one, you can just make shortcuts.

It would be nice if you have a look at my Scotty, which
actually does exactly that in a (imho ;) nice and simple
gui. I don't know wether it is good for general use, but it
works very well for me and could smooth the learning curve
if (probably needs some polishing though). It's written in
python/gtk free under GPL. See
http://theorie.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de/~arwagner/chess/
if you want to give it a try. Comments appreciated! :)

--

Kind regards,
Alexander Wagner

Date: 12 Dec 2005 22:23:50
From: pgeorges
Subject: Re: Linux Chess Programs! Which one is the Best?

Maybe not the best for play, but I prefer it than Chessbase : did you
try Scid ?

BEM a écrit :
> Hey Everyone,
>
> I am parsing through the mountain of sites and ebooks on Linux Chess
> programs and I am a little over whelmed. I currently have Knights
> installed on Ubuntu running KDE. I am using the GNUChess engine to play
> games against the computer. I signed up for a freechess.org but have
> not played a game yet. I need to read more about how that works. The
> telnet session opens but i have no idea how to start a game yet.
> Anyway I would like to start a discussion on which programs are better
> and why. I like Chessmaster 10 because i think the puzzles and training
> are usefull for me. However its for windows :(. I have thought about
> trying to get it to run in wine but am not sure how to install stuff so
> wine can run it. Need to do more research on that as well.
> Knights has a nicer look than the other Linux Chess programs I have
> tried but still seems like a hassle to get it working.
> Anyway I was wondering what programs people were using and why.
> There are also a couple of pay sites on the internet that claim to have
> rated play. I dont understand all of this yet either.
> to provide a little more background I have not played chess seriously
> since 1993 or 94 when i was a USCF player in college. My dhter
> joined the chess club at school and I have rekindled my interest in the
> sport. However finding people to play at my level (novice but more
> advanced than most 9 year old players) is nigh impossible. So online
> chess is the way to go.
>
>
> thanks
>