Installing SCIDvsPC on openSUSE Leap 42.1

SCIDvsPC is a "fork" of the multi-platform SCID chess database and toolkit. As an unabashed openSUSE advocate and user, I was overjoyed when the long-term support openSUSE Leap was released but was disappointed with the relatively smaller selection of games and the exclusion of SCIDvsPC.

Ah well, to get it installed, you will still need to download the tarball from the SCIDvsPC site, extract it and compile it.

Firstly, install the necessary dependencies:

#zypper in kbproto-devel libX11-devel libXau-devel libxcb-damage0 libxcb-devel libxcb-dpms0 libxcb-record0 libxcb-res0 libxcb-screensaver0 libxcb-xevie0 libxcb-xinerama0 libxcb-xprint0 libxcb-xtest0 libxcb-xvmc0 pthread-stubs-devel tcl-devel tk-devel xproto-devel gcc gcc48 glibc-devel libasan0 libatomic1 libitm1 libtsan0 linux-glibc-devel gcc48-c++ gcc-c++ libstdc++48-devel snack tkimg tkimg-devel make    


Then extract the downloaded SCIDvsPC tarball:

$tar -zxvf  scid_vs_pc-4.15.tgz
$cd scid_vs_pc-4.15

After the extraction, then proceed compile it:


$./configure
$su 
#make
#make install

To execute the SCIDvsPC application, type scid on the CLI.

Stockfish is an excellent analysis engine that can be installed if you have the Packman repository enabled. You can get it from One-Click install from here

After installing Stockfish, you can add Stockfish to the list of analysis engines for SCIDvsPC. From the SCIDvsPC application, Tools -> Analysis Engines -> New;  enter /usr/bin/stockfish20.bin in the Command field and the click on the ~/scidvspc button and finally click on OK.

Enjoy!

Installing SCIDvsPC on openSUSE 13.2

I enjoy running openSUSE and play chess. However, I find it tough to get a chess program close to the quality of ChessBase and Fritz. Shredder Chess was the closest, but as of openSUSE 13x, Fedora 2x and Ubuntu 14x - a problem with the X makes it unusable.

Stockfish is a fine engine, but the chess UIs in Linux is sorely in need of overhaul.

Until I came across SCIDvsPC - seems to fulfill my needs - a DB with playing and analysis options. There are no binaries for openSUSE but you can download the tar ball and compile it. It sounds more horrible than it actually is. Firstly, install the depedencies:

#zypper in kbproto-devel libX11-devel libXau-devel libxcb-damage0 libxcb-devel libxcb-dpms0 libxcb-record0 libxcb-res0 libxcb-screensaver0 libxcb-xevie0 libxcb-xinerama0 libxcb-xprint0 libxcb-xtest0 libxcb-xvmc0 pthread-stubs-devel tcl-devel tk-devel xproto-devel gcc gcc48 glibc-devel libasan0 libatomic1-gcc49 libitm1-gcc49 libtsan0-gcc49 linux-glibc-devel gcc48-c++ gcc-c++ libstdc++48-devel snack tkimg tkimg-devel make 

Then extract the downloaded SCIDvsPC tarball:

$tar -zxvf  scid_vs_pc-4.14.tgz
$cd scid_vs_pc-4.14

After the extraction, the compile it:


$./configure
$su
#make
#make install

To execute the SCIDvsPC application, type scid on the CLI.

Stockfish is an excellent analysis engine that can be installed if you have the Packman repository enabled. You can get it from One-Click install from here 

After installing Stockfish, you can add Stockfish to the list of analysis engines for SCIDvsPC. From the SCIDvsPC application, Tools -> Analysis Engines -> New;  enter /usr/bin/stockfish20.bin in the Command field and the click on the ~/scidvspc button and finally click on OK.

Enjoy!

When zypper throws a "Error message: Failed to connect to xxx.xxxxxx.xxx port 80: Network is unreachable"

I enjoy running my openSUSE 13.2 off a thumbdrive because it affords me the luxury of bringing my entire Linux desktop everywhere with me. Live USB created with the current openSUSE 13.2 GNOME Live CD  (instructions are here), has ensured stuff like themes, software removed/installed and other preferences are persistent! Awesomeness!!!

All went well and I only use it when and if I decided to travel. Come the long Chinese New Year holidays and I decided to dust off the long unused Live USB and plugged it into my workhorse, DELL E6330 and ran zypper up.

Suddenly I was bombarded with a bunch of   "Error message: Failed to connect to xxx.xxxxxx.xxx port 80: Network is unreachable" .

Scouring the web has yielded the following solution:

1. Edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file and add the following:
   
   net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
   net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
   net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1
2. Then execute the following:
   
   echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/disable_ipv6

 And my zypper works once again.