On-line engine blitz tourney January

[tttony]

I have a weird issue under Linux Mint 22.2 - something I didn't have earlier. When I start Xboard from the start menu with

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xboard -zp -ics -icshost nightmare-chess.nl -icshelper /opt/chess/timeseal/openseal -fUCI -fcp /opt/chess/engines/CT800_V1.46 -fd /opt/chess/engines/ -autoKibitz -keepAlive 1

then it fails. There's a dialogue box that says "Got end of file from keyboard", and clicking "OK" ends Xboard.

However, when I use the same command as above from the terminal, it works, though I have to use the terminal for the chat interface. It's just that the Xboard ICS chat function doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas anyone? What does "end of file from keyboard" mean in this context?

I had the same error on Debian: "Got end of file from keyboard"

I think that xboard needs a terminal to run, even that it has an ICS chat window it does not work like in WinBoard, where all chat messages are shown in the chat window, xboard shows all messages and command outputs in the terminal not on any window inside xboard

This is the start of my script to run xboard:

Detect if we are running inside a console window, if not run the script using your preferred terminal emulator

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if [ ! -t 1 ]; then
    qterminal -e "bash -c '$0; exec bash'" & 
    exit 1
fi

# run xboard command here

I went to the buy some snacks and when I came back the ICS was closed, I thought it was because of inactivity but I see it was the server, I see that my engine didn't play any game?

[Ras]

I think that xboard needs a terminal to run, even that it has an ICS chat window it does not work like in WinBoard, where all chat messages are shown in the chat window

That's the weird thing - it used to work like that (without terminal window), but now it doesn't any more.

[Joost Buijs]

I went to the buy some snacks and when I came back the ICS was closed, I thought it was because of inactivity but I see it was the server, I see that my engine didn't play any game?

According to history Skiull played only two games on the server yesterday, which is weird because the server crashed in the fourth or fifth round.

Last month the server was still on Linux Mint 22.1, maybe the crash has something to do with the new Linux version. I will take a look at the logs to see if I can find something conclusive.

[hgm]

I think that xboard needs a terminal to run, even that it has an ICS chat window it does not work like in WinBoard, where all chat messages are shown in the chat window, xboard shows all messages and command outputs in the terminal not on any window inside xboard

This must be an ancient version of XBoard. Recent versions have their own chat window (with even a split-window function so that you can separate private communications from general chatter on a busy server) like WinBoard, and don't need any terminal.

[Joost Buijs]

I've been looking at the logfiles, it seems the chess daemon produced a seg-fault without any clear reason, something it never did before. It is virtually impossible to find out what caused the problem. It could be hardware related, or it is some weird incompatibility with the latest version of Linux-Mint v22.3.

I think the best is to re-install Linux-Mint from scratch, upgrading versions like I did is probably less secure. And I will run an extensive memory test to check if there is something wrong in that department. This is all I can do for now.

The next tournament will be with fingers crossed.

[flok]

I've been looking at the logfiles, it seems the chess daemon produced a seg-fault without any clear reason, something it never did before. It is virtually impossible to find out what caused the problem. It could be hardware related, or it is some weird incompatibility with the latest version of Linux-Mint v22.3.

I think the best is to re-install Linux-Mint from scratch, upgrading versions like I did is probably less secure. And I will run an extensive memory test to check if there is something wrong in that department. This is all I can do for now.

The next tournament will be with fingers crossed.

What about coredumps? (google for coredumpctl)

[Joost Buijs]

I've been looking at the logfiles, it seems the chess daemon produced a seg-fault without any clear reason, something it never did before. It is virtually impossible to find out what caused the problem. It could be hardware related, or it is some weird incompatibility with the latest version of Linux-Mint v22.3.

I think the best is to re-install Linux-Mint from scratch, upgrading versions like I did is probably less secure. And I will run an extensive memory test to check if there is something wrong in that department. This is all I can do for now.

The next tournament will be with fingers crossed.

What about coredumps? (google for coredumpctl)

I can take a look at the core-dump, maybe I will. After looking at the internet it seems that Linux-Mint v22.3 is very buggy, maybe it's wise to replace it with an older version.

Windows11 also gets worse and worse after each release, yesterday I had a problem with that too, maybe I have to find another hobby, because this is not good for my nerves.

[tttony]

I think that xboard needs a terminal to run, even that it has an ICS chat window it does not work like in WinBoard, where all chat messages are shown in the chat window, xboard shows all messages and command outputs in the terminal not on any window inside xboard

This must be an ancient version of XBoard. Recent versions have their own chat window (with even a split-window function so that you can separate private communications from general chatter on a busy server) like WinBoard, and don't need any terminal.

I have installed the one that comes from Debian repo 4.9.1 and I can't use it without terminal, ICS and chat output is printed in the terminal, maybe is the Debian compilation, I could try to compile it myself to test it

I was on Windows with WinBoard 4.8 and worked fine, I installed Debian because Windows is crap

[hgm]

Strange. Perhaps it is the wrong build (Xaw instead of GTK). The Xaw version hasn't been maintained for ages.

[tttony]

Ok I've been investigating and yes, Debian team compiles xboard with Xaw, here is the package files: https://packages.debian.org/trixie/xboard

So I just remove it and cloned the xboard repo according to: https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/#download

Installed the required dependencies then:

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git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/r/xboard.git
cd xboard
./autogen.sh
./configure --with-gtk --enable-zippy
make
sudo make install

Executed my ICS script without terminal and still shows message: "Got end of file from keyboard"

Even with this minimal ICS options:

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xboard -ics -icshost nightmare-chess.nl

Still shows the error, using only non ICS options runs fine

Executing it with terminal runs fine