Default Stockfish in XBoard

[Look]

Hi,

How can I use Stockfish 10 as a default engine (for analysis) in XBoard ?

[Look]

Should I just copy Stockfish 10 to usr/games then in XBoard "Engine" menu "Load new 1st engine" and select that. Or that is something different ?

[hgm]

After you put the stockfish binary in /usr/games it should be available as a plain command (/usr/games is normally in the shell's search path). So when you register it through the Load 1st Engine menu, you should specify "stockfish" as the engine command (and the directory should be of no importance). Don't forget to tick the UCI checkbox, though. And make sure you have the Polyglot package installed.

If you install from a binary package the binary should be placed automatically where it belongs in your distro, and the engine should be automatically be registered to XBoard, and appear in the listbox of registered engines of the Load Engine dialogs. The same should happen when you install from source through 'make install'.

You can also run XBoard with the command

xboard -fcp stockfish -fUCI

In that case it won't be added to your list of registered engines.

[Look]

After you put the stockfish binary in /usr/games it should be available as a plain command (/usr/games is normally in the shell's search path). So when you register it through the Load 1st Engine menu, you should specify "stockfish" as the engine command (and the directory should be of no importance). Don't forget to tick the UCI checkbox, though. And make sure you have the Polyglot package installed.

I use Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS .
I put stockfish_10_x64_bmi2 to usr/games/ and after sudo -H nautilus command , right click then enable "Allow executing file as program" in "Permissions" , I am able to run it on Terminal :

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~$ '/usr/games/stockfish_10_x64_bmi2' 
Stockfish 10 64 BMI2 by T. Romstad, M. Costalba, J. Kiiski, G. Linscott
^C

But the engine does not appear in "Registered engines" in "Engine" menu in XBoard.

If you install from a binary package the binary should be placed automatically where it belongs in your distro, and the engine should be automatically be registered to XBoard, and appear in the listbox of registered engines of the Load Engine dialogs. The same should happen when you install from source through 'make install'.

[...]

Unfortunately Stockfish package in my Ubuntu is version 8 which is out-dated.

[hgm]

Engines would only be registered automatically when the are installed through the proper procedure (make-install or a binary package). Just moving them to an executable location is not enough; XBoard has no way to guess whether a new file you put somewhere (even if it could detect that you did that at all) is a chess engine. It might as well be a utility to erase your hard disk...

To register it by hand you have to use the Load Engine dialog, and tell it the name of the command (or browse to the executable using the browse button, which in Linux is a bit cumbersome as executables are usually well hidden), and engine type (UCI/xboard)

[Look]

Engines would only be registered automatically when the are installed through the proper procedure (make-install or a binary package). Just moving them to an executable location is not enough; XBoard has no way to guess whether a new file you put somewhere (even if it could detect that you did that at all) is a chess engine. It might as well be a utility to erase your hard disk...

To register it by hand you have to use the Load Engine dialog, and tell it the name of the command (or browse to the executable using the browse button, which in Linux is a bit cumbersome as executables are usually well hidden), and engine type (UCI/xboard)

Do you think this command is OK ?

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"Stockfish_10" -fcp "stockfish_10_x64_bmi2" -fd "." -fUCI

[JohnWoe]

Sometimes $PATH gets messed up after updating Linux distro. To test Sapeli it won't find binaries.
So I write this pretty regularly.

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export PATH="$PATH:/usr/games"

For example to install my engine just see where is Stockfish/Crafty/etc and put Sapeli there too. Works perfectly.
My machine.

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whereis stockfish
stockfish: /usr/games/stockfish /usr/share/man/man6/stockfish.6.gz

[hgm]

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"Stockfish_10" -fcp "stockfish_10_x64_bmi2" -fd "." -fUCI

This is not a command, but an engine description as it would be stored in XBoard's engine list. The engine command is: stockfish_10_x64_bmi2
As a nickname you could then specify: Stockfish_10
and as directory: .
(Which is the default suggestion in the Load engine dialog. But it doesn't really matter; Stockish would run with any directory set as current, as it doesn't access the file system. And even if it would, compliant Linux programs are supposed to know where their support files (e.g. opening books) are located, without relying on a current directory.)
The -fUCI would be added by ticking the UCI checkbox.

Of course you could enter this line directly into the engine list with the aid of the Edit Engine List menu item. Then you don't have to use the Load Engine dialog at all.