Linux Chess GUI that's good for engine matches/tournaments

[Daniel Mehrmann]

Not a GUI, as far as I know...

So what ?

With a lot of tools you can generate a real time GUI. Just for example take TCEC. Cutechess-cli is so much better for tourneys like xboard.

This is an alternative way to do the same things.

Regards
Daniel

[hgm]

He was specifically asking for a GUI. Not for the advice to make one himself...

Please explain us why in your opinion Cutichess-cli would be better for tourneys than XBoard. My experience is quite the opposite.

[Daniel Mehrmann]

He was specifically asking for a GUI. Not for the advice to make one himself...[/hgm]

Is it forbidden to show other ways with the same result ? You don't need to do so much yourself.
Everything is well documented.

Please explain us why in your opinion Cutichess-cli would be better for tourneys than XBoard. My experience is quite the opposite.

Us ? Nobody asked so far - Except you!
Of course your experince is the opposite - You're a xboard developer! Do you ever used cutechess-cli so far ?

Regards
Daniel

[Jesse Gersenson]

The term "64-bit wine" can have multiple meanings.

You'll want to build wine as "Shared WoW64", which means it'll run both 32 and 64-bit programs. There may be a hitch that ONLY 32-bit *.exe can invoke 64-bit *.exe
https://wiki.winehq.org/Building_Wine

This script of mine is dated but the ideas may still be valid:
http://www.jesseo.com/chess/64-bit-wine-ubuntu.sh

[hgm]

Us ? Nobody asked so far - Except you!

Do you really think I am the only one that reads this thread? How about the OP? Don't you think this would be interesting information to him? You make an amazing claim, so naturally I expect the readers to be curious as towhat it is based on.

Of course your experince is the opposite - You're a xboard developer! Do you ever used cutechess-cli so far ?

I tested it for performance. But like any command-line interface it was a bit cumbersome to use. I just prefer to enter the tourney parameters from menu dialogs, where I can browse to the relevant files, rather than having to type their name as command-line arguments. And select participating engines with a simple mouse click, rather than having to edit config files.

I also like to be able to control things like they are running. E.g. temporarily reduce the concurrency if I want to do something else on the computer.

For most of that it was a minus for cutechess-cli. And I did not really discover any plusses to compensate for that.

[Modern Times]

cutechess-cli

Regards
Daniel

Call me old-fashioned, but I like to actually see the games in action

[Daniel Mehrmann]

Us ? Nobody asked so far - Except you!

Do you really think I am the only one that reads this thread? How about the OP? Don't you think this would be interesting information to him? You make an amazing claim, so naturally I expect the readers to be curious as towhat it is based on.

That's no reason using the word "us". You should use always "me" instead of that.
You think at least some people would think like you - but basicly. But that's not proven as long nobody else write something. Yes, there is a chance of course, but you claim it basicly and that's a point i don't like.

Now you do a amazing claim that i would do a amazing claim, but i didn't. It is a suggestion for shawn and not more.

I'm happy with cutechess-cli for such tourney. You're happy with xboard (what else?) and another way is possible. It's shawn decision anyway and he can look around what's the best for him. He should read more cutechess-cli and xboard.

Regards
Daniel

[zd3nik]

I recently updated the OS on my machine to CentOS7, which unfortunately only provides a 64-bit version of wine. Which means I can no longer run Arena Chess GUI under wine.

I've looked around for "good" chess GUIs for linux in the past and came up short. The most important criteria to me is the ability to plug in UCI chess engines, run engine matches, EPD tests, and engine tournaments.

Anyone know of a good alternative to Arena that meets the criteria above? Or better yet, anyone know where I can get a 64-bit build of Arena?

Thanks,
Z

I do not run CentOS 7, but I do run a 64-bit version of wine and I can run Arena just fine. I cannot remember (it's been so long ago) if there were any specific things I had to do to run Arena under a 64-bit wine, but it does work. If you want me to dig further into this on my machine to see what was needed, I can do so for you, just let me know.

I run Linux Mint 17.3 (64-bit).

I was doing the same with Fedora (64-bit OS, 64-bit wine, runing 32-bit Arena under wine no prob, because their port of wine included 32-bit support).

But the CentOS team provides a 64-bit "only" port of wine. So this issue is specific to CentOS. I may end up switching back to Fedora because of it too. But I like to try different linux distros for a few months at a time (even if they have a disappointing quirk or two).

[zd3nik]

XBoard, of course.

I've had bad luck with xboard in the past - crashes a lot, difficult to configure engines (due to non-native UCI support and weird file encoding issues in the config file), UI drawing issues (board size too large for screen and trouble reiconfiguring it to fit), and I really hate the very old java style of windows and menus.

It also doesn't really keep a database of games played afaik. But that may just because I never got it to play enough engine matches before crashing to build up a database so I never looked.

But since I don't have a lot of options I'll give the latest version a try.

Just to be clear, I'm talking about xboard here. I've had a much better experience with winboard. Even running winboard under wine is better than running xboard native (in my experience). But winboard under wine caused serious lag issues the last time I tried to play in one of your online blitz tourneys and it caused my engine to loose it's games due to timeout. I think it was because it was redrawing the entire move list window between every move, and that redraw was just too slow under wine.

[zd3nik]

XBoard, of course.

I've had bad luck with xboard in the past - crashes a lot, difficult to configure engines (due to non-native UCI support and weird file encoding issues in the config file), UI drawing issues (board size too large for screen and trouble reiconfiguring it to fit), and I really hate the very old java style of windows and menus.

It also doesn't really keep a database of games played afaik. But that may just because I never got it to play enough engine matches before crashing to build up a database so I never looked.

But since I don't have a lot of options I'll give the latest version a try.

Just to be clear, I'm talking about xboard here. I've had a much better experience with winboard. Even running winboard under wine is better than running xboard native (in my experience). But winboard under wine caused serious lag issues the last time I tried to play in one of your online blitz tourneys and it caused my engine to loose it's games due to timeout. I think it was because it was redrawing the entire move list window between every move, and that redraw was just too slow under wine.

Pulled down latest from http://hgm.nubati.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi

Looks like the old java style windows/menus are a thing of the past which makes me VERY happy. (I think I may have been pulling down xboard from gnu.org in the past, which I'm guessing is either wildly out of date or not even the same thing?)

Thanks hgm. I'll keep you posted if I have any trouble.