Pi Zero compiling XBoard

[hgm]

The version from the 'learn' branch is the one I include with WinBoard.

[Richard Allbert]

Ok, so with readline support I have some issues compiling icsdrone, but will get there.

With XBoard, if I start with the following command line:

xboard -zp -ics -icshost freechess.org -icshelper timeseal -fcp "/home/pi/eng" -fd "."

The xboard starts, the bar at the top says freechess.org, but no ics window opens (where you usually enter username and password)

Am I doing something wrong?

[Richard Allbert]

Ok, so with readline support I have some issues compiling icsdrone, but will get there.

With XBoard, if I start with the following command line:

xboard -zp -ics -icshost freechess.org -icshelper timeseal -fcp "/home/pi/eng" -fd "."

The xboard starts, the bar at the top says freechess.org, but no ics window opens (where you usually enter username and password)

Am I doing something wrong?

I recompiled with Xaw and at least get a small window saying it fails to connect.

There is some strange error, though.

On my macbook, same thing, I get connection closed by ICS.

Anyway too much messing for one evening, I'll look again at the weekend.

[hgm]

XBoard has always used the xterm console from which you start it as ICS window. In 4.8.0 GTK build I added an experimental ICS Interaction/Chat window, but it might not be configured to pop up automatically. But you should be able to open it through the View menu. It still would also print all ICS communication in the terminal window, though.

Be sure you have timeseal; "Connection closed by ICS" is an often misleading generic error message for every problem with connecting or staying connected. Not being able to run timeseal would also result in this message.

[Richard Allbert]

It could be timeseal - I downloaded a version, but I'm not sure if it's the right one - there were multiple linux versions on the page I found and tbh I wasn't sure which should work.

Do you have a version for download that would work ?

Thanks again for the help.

[hgm]

Not really; I never actually play on an ICS from Linux. But you can easily test if it works from the console; to the user timeseal behaves like telnet. So running

timeseal freechess.org 5000

from the command line should connect you to FICS and allow you to log on and give ICS commands from that console.

[JoshPettus]

I sent an email a few days ago asking about the terminal/xterm requirement. Now that we have the ICS/chat window is it possible we can do away with it?
Or is it completely integrated with they way xboard does things? Couldn't we just have it pipe output to /dev/null rather then request a terminal window?

I would love to get rid of the bash scripts I distribute with xboard.app, and just use XOP files to open ICS mode (to demo for people and let them know they exist and how they can work.) Problem is, they don't open the apple terminal emulator with xboard. (not to mention launching xboard.app in ics mode with the apple "open" command has the same problem as it opens xboard as a separate process from the terminal emulator)