Scidb fork for modern linux

[foolnotion]

Hi guys,

Unfortunately my favorite chess program on linux, scidb, seems very much dead. But even if it's unmaintained I still use it a lot for opening preparation. So I made a fork and I fixed the source to allow it to compile on modern systems. I also fixed a bug which made it crash on Wayland and released an AppImage to make it easy to use.

Repo is here: https://github.com/foolnotion/scidb

Contributions or maintainers welcome.

[cpeters]

Hello!

The project is actively maintained I think - albeit on sourceforge.
https://sourceforge.net/u/fulvioscid/profile/
It'd be a pity indeed if your contributions would not reach upstream/the scid-landscape is getting cluttered (many forks plus already a vibecoded one)...

Greetings

[foolnotion]

I don't really plan on maintaining it any further than this bare minimum Wayland support, which probably the forks have already solved.
I think the right direction is chess databases based on sqlite/duckdb or something more modern in any case.

[matejst]

It is a pity the Scidb project was never finished. It is a beautiful chess database. I was waiting for years for G. Cramer to continue developing the database, and I am glad and thankful that you created this working appimage for us, non-programmers.

[foolnotion]

A new one is coming, when I will have polished it enough.

[stevenaaus]

Good work, thanks.

It doesn't build for me just now though. Without any debugging, i get a linking error for duplicate libs.
Steven A (scidvspc)
....
Compiling tkscidb.cpp [-g -Wall]
Building tkscidb-beta
/usr/bin/ld: tk/text/libTkText.a(tkText.o):/media/steve/0d3ac393-4f06-4797-9de5-79aa68dc78e1/usr/local/share/projects/scidvspc/scidb-master/src/tk/text/../tk8.6/tkInt.h:956: multiple definition of `tkWebColors'; tk/text/libTkText.a(tkMisc.o):/media/steve/0d3ac393-4f06-4797-9de5-79aa68dc78e1/usr/local/share/projects/scidvspc/scidb-master/src/tk/text/../tk8.6/tkInt.h:956: first defined here
/usr/bin/ld: tk/text/libTkText.a(tkText.o):/media/steve/0d3ac393-4f06-4797-9de5-79aa68dc78e1/usr/local/share/projects/scidvspc/scidb-master/src/tk/text/../tk8.6/tkInt.h:954: multiple definition of `tkPredefBitmapTable'; tk/text/libTkText.a(tkMisc.o):/media/steve/0d3ac393-4f06-4797-9de5-79aa68dc78e1/usr/local/share/projects/scidvspc/scidb-master/src/tk/text/../tk8.6/tkInt.h:954: first defined here

etc

Linux steve-ati 5.15.0-176-generic #186-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 13 11:01:42 UTC 2026 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Tcl/Tk version: 8.6
Your operating system is: Linux 5.15.0-176-generic
Distributor: Ubuntu
Revision: 22.04
Version: 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish)
Checking if your system has gcc installed: yes (version 11.4).
Checking if your system has g++ installed: yes (version 11.4).
Checking if your kernel supports __sync_* builtin functions: yes.
Location of tcl.h: /usr/local/include
Location of tk.h: /usr/local/include
Location of Tcl 8.6 library: /usr/local/lib
Location of Tk 8.6 library: /usr/local/lib
Location of X11/Xlib.h: /usr/include
Location of X11 library: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
Location of Xcursor library: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
Location of fontconfig library: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
Checking your fontconfig version: 2.13
Checking if your system has X11/SM/SM.h: yes.
Checking if your system has fontconfig: yes.
Checking if your system has freetype2: yes.
Checking if your kernel has inotify support: yes
Checking if your system already has zlib installed: yes.
Checking if your system already has zziplib installed: no.
Using bundled library.
Checking if your system already has expat installed: yes.
Checking if your system already has gdbm installed: no.
Using bundled library.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On this insane system debugging of own processes is not allowed due to the
kernel hardening paranoia. You might change this behaviour, see
<http://sourceforge.net/p/scidb/mailman/ ... /28418675/>, and then configure
again, otherwise you will not see useful error messages in case of internal
errors.
Makefile.in configured for your system was written.
Now just type "make" to compile Scidb.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The distributed Tk library may be broken, it is possible that some windows of
the application will freeze. In this case you have to use a self-compiled Tk
library if you want to avoid this problem (read INSTALL).

It is highly recommended to build Scidb on a working Unix system. This system
is broken and distorted due to the "kernel hardening" paranoia, which assumes
that every software is an attacker. But Scidb is definitively not an attacker
and requires a sane system.

[foolnotion]

Compilation is really complicated and requires custom C/CXX flags (https://github.com/foolnotion/scidb/blo ... ackage.nix). You're much better off running the AppImage: https://github.com/foolnotion/scidb/rel ... 4.AppImage
(download to something like .local/bin, rename to scidb or what you want, chmod +x and done)

[stevenaaus]

Thanks. I was suprised it got all the way to linking. Good work.
If i find time to sort it out, I'll let you know.
Cheers

[matejst]

Will there perhaps be a new version of Scidb? It is fully usable, but there are a few bugs.

Anyway, a lot of effort has been devoted to improve Scid, but when I see Scidb, I feel that this program deserved to be developed too. It is simple, well conceived and beautiful.

Nonetheless, I would like, once again, to thank foolnotion for making Scidb available.

[foolnotion]

I don't think there is going to be any new version unless Gregor Cramer decides to pick it up again. It has a lot of technical debt which makes forking it very difficult:
- obsolete/outdated tcl/tk GUI
- author's own parallel implementation of C++ STL (MSTL)
- very complicated codebase

I prefer developing my own software in C++ but using modern technologies, but it is still far from being ready.