XBoard and WinBoard: Frequently Asked Questions

This document answers some frequently asked questions about the graphical chess interfaces XBoard and WinBoard. A hyperlinked version of this FAQ is available on the Web through the page http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/FAQ.html.

This FAQ is in need of revision. Please contact us if you'd like to help update it.

Outline

• [A] Introduction and hot topics
• [B] XBoard and WinBoard
• [C] XBoard and WinBoard, bugs and problems
• [D] Crafty and other topics

Detailed contents

• [A] Introduction and hot topics
  • [A.1] What are XBoard and WinBoard?
  • [A.2] Where can I get chess information and chess software?
  • [A.3] What are the current version numbers for XBoard and WinBoard?
  • [A.4] Who is working on this project?
  • [A.5] How do I report bugs, offer help, etc.?
  • [A.6] What are the future plans for XBoard and WinBoard?
• [B] XBoard and WinBoard
  • [B.1] What is XBoard?
  • [B.2] Is there an XBoard for Microsoft Windows? What is WinBoard? How do I install WinBoard?
  • [B.3] Is there an XBoard for the Amiga? What is AmyBoard?
  • [B.4] Is there an XBoard for the Macintosh?
  • [B.5] Does XBoard run on VMS?
  • [B.6] What is cmail?
  • [B.7] How do I build XBoard? Do I have to have gcc?
  • [B.8] Can I use XBoard or WinBoard to play a game of chess with another human?
  • [B.9] Will WinBoard run on Windows 3.1? How about Windows CE (also known as Pocket PC)?
  • [B.10] How do I use XBoard or WinBoard as an external viewer for PGN files with my Web browser?
  • [B.11] How do I use WinBoard as an external viewer for PGN files with the MS Windows File Manager or Explorer?
  • [B.12] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal with XBoard?
  • [B.13] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal with WinBoard?
  • [B.14] How do I play bughouse with XBoard or WinBoard?
  • [B.16] What is Zippy? How can I interface a chess program to the Internet Chess Servers?
  • [B.17] How can I interface my own chess program to XBoard or WinBoard?
  • [B.18] How can I recompile WinBoard from source?
  • [B.19] How can I use XBoard or WinBoard to talk to an Internet Chess Server through a firewall or proxy?
  • [B.20] How can I use XBoard or WinBoard on chess.net with accuclock?
  • [B.21] Can I get Zippy to do one or more ICS commands automatically at the start or end of each game?
  • [B.22] How do I print from WinBoard?
  • [B.23] Can I get Zippy to automatically reconnect to ICS when its connection breaks?
  • [B.24] The chess engines are too strong and always beat me. How can I adjust the difficulty level to make them weaker?
  • [B.25] May I use the piece bitmaps from XBoard/WinBoard in my own program?
  • [B.26] How can I get rid of these silly logos that this new WinBoard displays above the board?
  • [B.27] How can I install logos for other engines, Internet Chess Servers or Human users?
  • [B.28] Is there readline support for XBoard?
• [C] XBoard and WinBoard, bugs and problems
  • [C.1] I can't build XBoard because the X11/Xaw/... include files are not found.
  • [C.2] Configuring or building XBoard fails due to missing header files, missing libraries, or undefined symbols.
  • [C.3] I have problems using WinBoard on ICS with a modem. I'm not running SLIP or PPP, but just dialing in to an ordinary login account("shell account").
  • [C.4] I have problems using WinBoard on ICS with Windows 95 and SLIP or PPP. When trying to start up, it gets the error "Address family not supported by protocol family" (or some equally strange message).
  • [C.5] When I try to run WinBoard, I get the message "Failed to start chess program gnuchess on localhost: NO LANGFILE (file gnuchess.lan not found)".
  • [C.6] I want to use XBoard or WinBoard as an Internet Chess Server interface, but the ICS Client option is grayed out on the menu.
  • [C.7] How do I give command-line options to a Windows program like WinBoard?
  • [C.9] When I exit from WinBoard after using it to play against a chess program on my machine, the chess program keeps running in the background.
  • [C.12] Why do my ICS opponents often get extra time after they make their moves? Why do I sometimes lose time off my clock after I make my move?
  • [C.13] I can't run WinBoard unless I delete the WinBoard.ini file each time!
  • [C.15] I get errors compiling XBoard's parser.c.
  • [C.16] I get an error building WinBoard from source because "flex" is not found.
  • [C.17] XBoard hangs shortly after connecting to an ICS when used with dxterm, cmdtool, dtterm, kterm, konsole, or other substitutes for xterm.
  • [C.18] The WinBoard pieces show up in the wrong colors, appear distorted, or are not visible at all.
  • [C.19] XBoard or WinBoard tells me "Error: first chess program (...) exited unexpectedly".
  • [C.20] XBoard tells me "Warning: Cannot allocate colormap entry", or "too few colors available; trying monochrome mode", or "XPM pieces cannot be used in monochrome mode".
  • [C.21] When I log in to freechess.org, the Enter key doesn't work, and I have to use Ctrl+J instead. But when I use WinBoard, Ctrl+J doesn't work either, so I'm stuck.
  • [C.22] XBoard says, "Failed to start first chess program fairymax on localhost: fairymax: No such file or directory."
• [D] Crafty and other topics
  • [D.1] What is XChess?
  • [D.2] What is Winsock Chess?
  • [D.3] What is Crafty?
  • [D.4] How do I use Crafty with XBoard?
  • [D.5] How do I use Crafty with WinBoard?
  • [D.6] How do I use GNU Chess with XBoard?
  • [D.7] How do I use GNU Chess with WinBoard?
  • [D.8] What is Fairy-Max?
  • [D.9] What is UCI? What is Polyglot?
  • [D.10] How do I use an UCI engine with XBoard / WinBoard?

[A] Introduction and hot topics

[A.1] What are XBoard and WinBoard?

XBoard and WinBoard are graphical user interfaces for chess. XBoard runs with the X Window System on Unix systems (including GNU/Linux); see topic [B.1]. WinBoard runs on true 32-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, such as Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, and should continue to work on future 32-bit Windows systems. It does not work on Windows CE (also known as Pocket PC), nor does it work on 16-bit Windows systems such as Windows 3.1. See topic [B.2].

[A.2] Where can I get chess information and chess software?

As a shortcut to most things mentioned in this FAQ, try Tim Mann's Chess Web page, http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html. This page page is currently a very bad place to get the latest released versions of XBoard and WinBoard and the most up-to-date version of this FAQ, though. A better place is the WinBoard forum. Also see our Savannah project pages at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/.

If you have other questions about XBoard/WinBoard that aren't answered in this FAQ, you can try Aaron Tay's WinBoard and Chess Engines FAQ, atdefunct URL.

For general news and information about chess, try the CCC forum or the WinBoard forum. Anothe possibility is the newsgroup hierarchy rec.games.chess.*, especially the groups rec.games.chess.misc and rec.games.chess.computer. Both of the latter groups have very informative FAQs maintained by Steve Pribut; look for them on the newsgroups or at defunct URL.

Like other GNU software, you can get XBoard, and WinBoard by anonymous FTP from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ and its many mirror sites. Look in the subdirectories xboard, and winboard. The .tar.gz suffix on the files there indicates they were packed with tar and compressed with gzip. The .exe or .zip suffixes indicate files that were packed and compressed with zip.

For other chess software, try the Internet Chess Library. Use anonymous FTP to connect to ftp.freechess.org, or go to the Web page http://www.freechess.org/. You can get chess software, game collections, the FAQ file for rec.games.chess, and other chess-related material there, in the directory pub/chess. The FTP server can automatically decompress files for you as you download them, useful if you don't have gzip.

Here is a sample anonymous ftp session. Some of the ftp server's responses are abbreviated, but all the commands you must type are included.

    % ftp ftp.gnu.org
    Connected to ftp.gnu.org
    Name: anonymous
    Password: your-email-address@your-site
    ftp> binary
    200 Type set to I.
    ftp> cd /pub/gnu/xboard
    ftp> dir
    -rw-r--r-- 1 14910 wheel  1057625 May 20 00:25 xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
    ftp> get xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
    150 BINARY connection for xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz (1057625 bytes).
    226 Transfer complete.
    ftp> quit

[A.3] What are the current version numbers for XBoard and WinBoard?

At this writing, the current version numbers are:

• XBoard 4.4.0
• WinBoard 4.4.0

[A.4] Who is working on this project?

[A.5] How do I report bugs, offer help, etc.?

Bug reports, suggestions, and offers to help on XBoard or WinBoard should be sent to bug-xboard@gnu.org.

Beginner questions and discussion about the program may get faster answers on the WinBoard Forum at http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/. This forum also constains a section dedicated to propose and discuss new features for WinBoard / XBoard or WinBoard protocol, and reposrt bugs, and offers downloads of pre-installed packages of WinBoard bundled with other software, useful for conducting computer-computer tournaments.

If you are developing a chess engine that works with XBoard or WinBoard (or an alternative GUI that works with such engines), see the Chess Engines mailing list, hosted at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chess-engines. For better response, join the above-mentioned WinBoard forum, or the CCC forum.

Any time you want to report a possible bug in XBoard or WinBoard, we need to know exactly what you did, and exactly what error (or other) messages you got.

If you are using Unix, run the "script" program, run XBoard with the -debug flag (if you get as far as running it), do whatever is necessary to reproduce the problem, type "exit" to the shell, and mail us the resulting typescript file. We also need to know what hardware/operating system combination you are using. The command "uname -a" will usually tell you this; include its output in your typescript.

If you are using MS Windows, run WinBoard with the -debug flag, and send us a copy of the WinBoard.debug file. If you aren't sure how to add command-line flags to WinBoard, you can hit Ctrl+Alt+F12 to create a WinBoard.debug file after WinBoard starts, but that is not as good, because a few messages that would have been printed at the start are lost.

Either way, please send us the exact text of the commands you typed and the output you got, not just your recollection of approximately what they were. The messages may seem meaningless to you, but they are very meaningful to us and essential for diagnosing problems.

[A.6] What are the future plans for XBoard and WinBoard?

Our plans are always in flux. As with most free software projects, the next release will happen when it happens -- or it may never happen. This has always been the policy for XBoard/WinBoard. Releases have never been promised in specific time frames.

Starting in November 2003, several new developers have joined the project, and work is now hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/. Lots of work is just getting underway, but nothing is far along yet.

Here is a partial list of items that have a nonzero probability of happening in finite time.

• Small bug fixes. Occasionally someone sends us a fix, or reports a small bug very clearly so that we're able to fix it in a few minutes work.
• Protocol version 3. The members of the chess engine authors' mailing list discussed a set of proposed features for the next version of the XBoard/WinBoard chess engine communication protocol. The WinBoard 4.3 fork has taken the protocol in a different direction, though, extending version 2 with new features as they were needed, rather than upgrading to a new protocol in a single sweep. It does not seem likely that there will be a v3 protocol in the foreseeable future.
• Contributed features. Several people have mailed me code to add various features. Most of this code is available on the XBoard/WinBoard extensions page at http://www.tim-mann.org/extensions.html, but it is not in any official releases yet. We are in the process of getting folks to formally assign the copyrights on their contributions to the Free Software Foundation so that we can include it in official releases in the future.
• Internationalization. Several people have expressed interest in internationalizing XBoard/WinBoard. Version 4.4 implements internationalization in its XBoard branch, and includes (partial) Turkish and German translations. For WinBoard a suitable way for internationalization still has to be found, as all menu strings there are not in the C code, but in a Windows resource file. In any case, we will need more translators, to update the existing translations (for version 4.2.7) to the current version, and to provide translaions for oter languages. Watch for news on the xboard-devel mailing list on our Savannah pages.

[B] XBoard and WinBoard

[B.1] What is XBoard?

XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess. It displays a chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and loads and saves games in Portable Game Notation (PGN). XBoard is free software. It serves as a front-end for many different chess services, including:

Chess engines that will run on your machine and play a game against you or help you analyze, such as GNU Chess and Crafty (topic [D.3] below).

Chess servers on the Internet, where you can connect to play chess with people from all over the world, watch other users play, or just hang out and chat.

Correspondence chess played by electronic mail. The cmail program (topic [B.6] below) automates the tasks of parsing email from your opponent, playing his moves out on your board, and mailing your reply move after you've chosen it.

The Web and your own saved games. You can use XBoard as a helper application to view PGN games in your Web browser, or to load and save your own PGN files.

XBoard runs under Unix or Unix-compatible systems. It requires the X Window System, version X11R4 or later. There are also ports of XBoard to 32-bit Microsoft Windows and to the Amiga. See topics [B.2] and [B.3] respectively.

[B.2] Is there an XBoard for Microsoft Windows? What is WinBoard? How do I install WinBoard?

WinBoard is a port of XBoard to 32-bit Microsoft Windows systems, such as Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, and XP. It uses the same back end chess code as XBoard, but the front end graphics code is a complete rewrite. WinBoard is free software.

The WinBoard distribution includes a sample Chess engine.

The WinBoard distribution also includes the ICC timestamp and FICS timeseal programs (topic [B.12]).

cmail (topic [B.6]) has not been ported to Windows. All the other XBoard functions are included in WinBoard. The International Email Chess Group web site at http://www.iecg.org/ recommends ECTool (http://www.ectool.nu/) for playing correspondence chess under Windows.

You install WinBoard as follows. Download the WinBoard package to your PC (see topic [A.2]). It will be a file with a name like winboard-4_0_0.exe. Double-click on this file in the Explorer or File Manager to run it. Follow the on-screen prompts.

[B.3] Is there an XBoard for the Amiga? What is AmyBoard?

AmyBoard is a port of XBoard to the Amiga, by Jochen Wiedmann. The distribution includes a port of GNU Chess. AmyBoard is free software.

The current version of AmyBoard is 330.5 (based on XBoard 3.3.0). No one is currently maintaining it.

System requirements:

• An Amiga (obviously :-), running OS 2.04 or later, 2Mb RAM or more.
• MUI 2.0 or later.
• Workbench or another screen with no less than 640x400 pixels (adjustable with the MUI-Prefs); this restriction is just because we don't have bitmaps with less than 40x40 pixels per square. If someone contributes bitmaps with 20x20 or 20x25, they will work with any Hires mode.

If you would like to use an ICS, you need an Internet connection via either

• a telnet-like program, or
• a terminal program reading from stdin and writing to stdout.

AmyBoard is available in the Internet Chess Library (topic [A.2]).

[B.4] Is there an XBoard for the Macintosh?

Note: I am not a Mac user and have not tried this myself, so I cannot answer questions about it.

Because MacOS X has a Unix base, XBoard will compile and run on it. You do need an X11 (X Window System) server and client libraries. I'm told that these come standard with MacOS X 10.3 and later. Once you install the X11 package, XBoard is reported to compile and run without changes.

You can avoid having to compile XBoard (and GNU Chess) yourself by using the Fink sofware packaging system. See http://fink.sourceforge.net/ and http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/ for more info on Fink.

There is no version of XBoard or WinBoard that runs with the native (non-X11) Mac graphical interface, and none that runs on MacOS 9 or earlier.

[B.5] Does XBoard run on VMS?

No. This port would probably be a lot easier than the Win32 and Amiga ports were, because VMS has the X Window system (under the name DECwindows) and is now POSIX compliant. If you are working on this, send mail to bug-xboard@gnu.org to let us know.

[B.6] What is cmail?

cmail is a program that helps you play and keep track of electronic mail correspondence chess games using XBoard. It is distributed with XBoard and has its own manual page. cmail is free software. It was written by Even Welsh. cmail has not been ported to Windows; sorry.

[B.7] How do I build XBoard? Do I need gcc?

The first step to building XBoard is to get the distribution file. See topic [A.2] for places you can ftp the software from.

Next, decide what directory tree you are going to install XBoard in. The default is /usr/local, but you probably don't have write access to that directory unless you are a system administrator. If you do, type the following to install it there:

    gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
    cd xboard-*/
    ./configure
    make
    su
    make install

If you want to install xboard in your personal home directory ($HOME/bin), type this:

    gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
    cd xboard-*/
    ./configure --prefix=$HOME
    make
    make install

If the first step above fails because you don't have gzip, see topic [A.2], and ask a local Unix expert if you need more help. If you have any problems with the last two steps, read the READ_ME and INSTALL files in the xboard-*/ directory. You will also find this FAQ there.

You don't need to have gcc to build XBoard. Almost any Unix C compiler should do.

[B.8] Can I use XBoard or WinBoard to play a game of chess with another human?

The only way for two humans on different machines to play chess in real time using XBoard/WinBoard is to use an Internet Chess Server as an intermediary. That is, each player runs his own copy of XBoard or WinBoard, both of them log into an ICS, and they play a ga