Glaurung GUI for Mac OS X (and possibly Linux)

[Tord Romstad]

I have the 7-Zip for open (extact) of Archives Data. I cannot open Your last Update with him (11 MB). What is the problem?

Hello Eduard,

I am not sure precisely what you are trying to do. If you use Mac OS X, you should be able to simply double-click on the .dmg file to open a disk image containing the program and source code. If you don't use Mac OS X, I don't know how you can open the .dmg file, but I also don't understand why you would want to do so. The GUI is a Macintosh program. If you run Windows, please just use Arena, Winboard or Shredder.

Tord

[Tord Romstad]

As much as I'd like to help bring the GUI to Linux, I'm very unfamiliar with GNUStep. I have a bit of C++ knowledge, but it may not be enough to do this project in a reasonable amount of time(I don't know, it'd of course depend on how GNUStep works, maybe I do). However, if no one else more qualified is willing to take up the challenge, I may as well give it a shot.

GNUStep and Cocoa are not C++, but Objective-C: That other, more elegant but less mainstream object-oriented extension of C.

Thanks for offering to help me with a Linux port! I'll have a quick look at it myself first, and give you some advice about what needs to be done later. I've read a bit about GNUStep earlier today, which has made me more optimistic: There is a good chance that it will be possible to port the program without a lot of changes.

Tord

[revengeska]

Sounds good. Whatever needs to be done I'll try to figure it out and do what I can. Linux right now still lacks a good GUI for engine vs engine, so I'm on board with anyone trying to bring one to Linux.

[glorfindel]

I wish I had time to help with the Linux port. If it is not done in the next four weeks, I will then probably have some spare time to help you.

[Tord Romstad]

Sounds good. Whatever needs to be done I'll try to figure it out and do what I can. Linux right now still lacks a good GUI for engine vs engine, so I'm on board with anyone trying to bring one to Linux.

Thanks, but I fear that you have somewhat too high expectations about my GUI, especially in its current state. For engine vs engine play, XBoard is pretty hard to beat. It's fast, light-weight, stable and reliable, and works with a much bigger number of engines (because you can use both XBoard and UCI engines, while my GUI only supports UCI).

The Glaurung GUI works OK for short engine matches of at most 10-20 games, apart from an annoying bug which causes it to crash when you try to start a new game after a match is finished. For longer matches, the GUI consumes lots of memory and is not very stable, probably because of some memory leak.

Actually, I think the perfect tool for running engine vs engine matches would be a simple command line program without a GUI.

Tord

[Tord Romstad]

I wish I had time to help with the Linux port. If it is not done in the next four weeks, I will then probably have some spare time to help you.

Thanks!

With both you and Sean on the team, I'm sure it will be possible to make a Linux port. If we are lucky, it may turn out to be very easy. I found this guide to writing portable GNUStep/Cocoa code:

http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/Writing_portable_code

The relevant section to us is the one with the heading "Porting from Cocoa or OPENSTEP (NS*) to GNUstep". As far as I can remember, I haven't used anything mentioned in the "don't use" list, so there is good hope that a port will be relatively straightforward.

Your willingness to help is greatly appreciated. This spirit of sharing and cooperation is one of the things I like most about the Linux community. Among Mac OS X developers, there is a completely different culture. Very few programs are offered with source code, and whenever someone has spent an hour or two hacking up some buggy and semi-useful program, he wants to earn some money by releasing it as shareware.

Tord

[revengeska]

Sounds good. Whatever needs to be done I'll try to figure it out and do what I can. Linux right now still lacks a good GUI for engine vs engine, so I'm on board with anyone trying to bring one to Linux.

Thanks, but I fear that you have somewhat too high expectations about my GUI, especially in its current state. For engine vs engine play, XBoard is pretty hard to beat. It's fast, light-weight, stable and reliable, and works with a much bigger number of engines (because you can use both XBoard and UCI engines, while my GUI only supports UCI).

The Glaurung GUI works OK for short engine matches of at most 10-20 games, apart from an annoying bug which causes it to crash when you try to start a new game after a match is finished. For longer matches, the GUI consumes lots of memory and is not very stable, probably because of some memory leak.

Actually, I think the perfect tool for running engine vs engine matches would be a simple command line program without a GUI.

Tord

Well, the point is that Windows has far better options right now than Linux, and by simply bringing source code onto the Linux side is a step in the right direction. I really do think something as simple as what you created would probably be enough to spark an interest in Linux communities, to add to software repositories and such(mainly because Glaurung offers a much stronger option than what both GNUChess and Crafty can provide). Look at what happened with scid, it's now considered a highly successful project and a pretty powerful program, with at least a few different spinoffs. Look at what chess programs currently exist in Linux software repositories, they are not so great.

Your willingness to help is greatly appreciated. This spirit of sharing and cooperation is one of the things I like most about the Linux community. Among Mac OS X developers, there is a completely different culture. Very few programs are offered with source code, and whenever someone has spent an hour or two hacking up some buggy and semi-useful program, he wants to earn some money by releasing it as shareware.

Tord

It's definately one of the reasons I switched over to Linux from Windows(back in the beginning of March). I really do appreciate and support that the programs you release come with the source distributed under the GPL. It's a great move and I can't help but want to be a part of it.

[Tord Romstad]

Well, the point is that Windows has far better options right now than Linux, and by simply bringing source code onto the Linux side is a step in the right direction. I really do think something as simple as what you created would probably be enough to spark an interest in Linux communities, to add to software repositories and such

Perhaps you are right, but unfortunately I think it will be difficult for a GNUstep program to attract a big number of developers. Technically I think GNUstep is superior to GTK or Qt, but it doesn't help much as long as few people use it and developers are not willing to learn Objective-C.

I am also not sure how well a GNUstep program behaves in a typical Gnome or KDE environment. My guess is that it would work OK, but not look and feel like other apps.

(mainly because Glaurung offers a much stronger option than what both GNUChess and Crafty can provide).

Stronger than GNUChess, at least. The comparison to Crafty is not so clear; most people underestimate Crafty these days.

Your willingness to help is greatly appreciated. This spirit of sharing and cooperation is one of the things I like most about the Linux community. Among Mac OS X developers, there is a completely different culture. Very few programs are offered with source code, and whenever someone has spent an hour or two hacking up some buggy and semi-useful program, he wants to earn some money by releasing it as shareware.

It's definately one of the reasons I switched over to Linux from Windows(back in the beginning of March). I really do appreciate and support that the programs you release come with the source distributed under the GPL. It's a great move and I can't help but want to be a part of it.

Thanks! I am sure we will eventually mange to make my GUI work in Linux.

Tord

[Enrico]

Hi Tord,

will it be long before Glaurung Lodz 2007 will be available separately for all platforms?

Hello Graham,

In fact, I don't intend to release Glaurung Lodz 2007 for other platforms at all, except maybe as an extra bonus for collectors when Glaurung 2 is finally released.

Glaurung Lodz 2007 is almost the same program as Glaurung 2 - ?/2, and there is not much point in releasing it for all platforms. The only changes are the addition of some new endgame knowledge and slightly different time managment in ponder on games.

The reason why Lodz 2007 is 23% faster than 2 - ?/5 on 64-bit Intel Macs is that the new version is compiled with 64-bit support, while the previous one was 32-bit. For Windows, there already is a 64-bit version of 2 - ?/5.

Tord

Hello Tord.

What about my iPhone? Where is Glaurung for that? I need CHESS on it, immediately.

It shouldn't do to bad -- Folks have already hacked it apart and found it to have a 620MHz ARM processor (capable of up to 700MHz..)

http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/01/ipho ... 20mhz-arm/

Here's the only chess I've found you can play on it, but I have to be online to do so:

http://ec2-72-44-51-230.z-1.compute-1.a ... chess.html

Here is the full story on the (claimed) first iPhone application development tool:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mo ... t_tool.php


Regards,

-elc.

[Tord Romstad]

Hello Tord.

What about my iPhone? Where is Glaurung for that? I need CHESS on it, immediately.

It shouldn't do to bad -- Folks have already hacked it apart and found it to have a 620MHz ARM processor (capable of up to 700MHz..)

http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/01/ipho ... 20mhz-arm/

Here's the only chess I've found you can play on it, but I have to be online to do so:

http://ec2-72-44-51-230.z-1.compute-1.a ... chess.html

Here is the full story on the (claimed) first iPhone application development tool:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mo ... t_tool.php

Hello Enrico,

There will be a Glaurung version for the iPhone shortly after Apple opens the device for third-party apps. At the moment, the only possibility is Web applications, which means that the program can't run locally on the phone, and that you have to be online. The development tool you link to above is really nothing more than a tool for developing web apps tailor-made for the iPhone.

If Apple releases a software development kit and a iPhone simulator I can run on my Mac, I'll start working on a chess program for the iPhone immediately.

Tord