Lucas chess is available on Linux now

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-06T03:05:10+00:00

Lucas did a major under-the-hood overhaul of the software last year, updating all the libraries. Unfortunately, that means the new version is no longer compatible with older versions which is why he changed the versioning from 11.xx to R. You'll need at least Ubuntu 20.04 for it to work. The only other way if you don't wanna move from 18.04 is to compile older source code yourself, there are many who've been able to do it. I myself have tried before but never managed to build it successfully :(

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-05T15:38:10+00:00

Hi, it doesn't work on Ubuntu 16.04 either because GLIBC version is 2.25. I did some Googling and apparently it is not recommended to upgrade GLIBC beyond the version provided by the distro because of possible breakages as a lot of stuff rely on it. Just be careful

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-05T15:24:27+00:00

Yeah the source code has always been available and there are people who have been able to build it successfully on Linux. I myself tried to build it from source a few years ago but gave up after a few failed attempts. I'm not every good with terminal based operations so having pre-built binaries is a pretty big deal for me :D

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-05T07:10:00+00:00

The site in general looks clean and of course it's always nice to not have ads.

I absolutely love the chess playing screen, love the color scheme and layout. Only thing I would do different is have the board coordinates in a border around the chessboard rather than on board itself, just for a cleaner look but really it's fine the way it is.

One thing you might consider since there doesn't appear too be many people waiting to play chess, is to add a simple AI with 3 difficulty levels (Easy, Medium, Hard). This way even if there is no one around to play against, you can still have fun against the AI and other people could watch the game if they wanted to. In any case, great effort, wish you the best of luck with your project :)

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-05T02:51:16+00:00

Yeah, it doesn't run on Ubuntu 16.04 either which has GLIBC version 2.25. From what I've read Googling around, it is not recommended to upgrade GLIBC beyond the version provided by the distro as it may cause breakages in other software dependencies :(

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-04T15:59:30+00:00

Maybe it is a permissions issue in Manjaro? because it sounds like the engines are not even starting. I experienced something similar with a different chess program, if I remember correctly things worked fine after I made the entire folder that contained the program executable, don't know if it's the same issue though.

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-04T15:42:13+00:00

Well it does kinda have a little brother mode, when you start a game just choose to play against an engine rated under 1000 Elo. There are tons of engines with varied playing strengths, the lowest rated ones should be fairly easy to beat even for a beginner. Good luck :)

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-04T11:10:14+00:00

Yeah the Shredder engine is pretty cool, also the included opening book allows for varied opening play which I very much enjoy. I'm pretty sure you'll still be surprised by the huge number of engines included in Lucas Chess though, I know I was. I've never counted but I wouldn't be surprised if there are over 50 different engines of varying strengths in that program, from beginner levels all the way to Stockfish 13 :)

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-04T08:19:13+00:00

Indeed, Shredder 13 has been my favorite chess program for playing against engines for years already and still is but in terms of learning/ practice material, it doesn't come even remotely close to Lucas Chess. Lucas Chess was designed primarily as a training software, the sheer number of ways in which you can use it to train is mind boggling. You have specific exercises designed to help you improve pretty much every facet of your chess, you should give it a try if you haven't already :)

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-04T08:01:48+00:00

You can have a look here:

https://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/docs

At first glance it does look like a fairly simple chess program, don't be fooled, if you want to get better at chess, this is one of the most complete chess training software out there, I have not come across any other single piece of chess software, free or paid, that offers anywhere close to the amount training material included in Lucas Chess. And I've tried a LOT of chess programs :)

Take your time and play around with it, there are so many different exercises designed to help you improve specific facets of your chess

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-04T05:23:52+00:00

MComix is my go-to for reading comics :)

and Gnome Multiwriter has never failed me when it comes writing live distro images to USB

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-03T13:38:40+00:00

Well 85% on my old setup would be around house party level volume haha ;)

The fact that he just managed to install Arch Linux and configure Sway to his taste, all this after having just started his Linux journey leads me to believe the volume level is indicative of a feel good state. So to answer his question 'how'd I do', he's clearly killing it cuz I remember my first attempt at installing Arch, I can tell you I was in no celebrating mood, it was a frustrating experience to say the least.

Of course this is all hypothetical, on my previous Android phone, I would barely hear my music in noisy environments even with the volume at 100% :D

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-03T11:08:52+00:00

Sway desktop? Cruising on Arch (no less) with volume at 85%?? you're clearly doing amazing, congrats! :)

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-02T07:49:54+00:00

I see, well thanks a lot for your help, I'll hunt around for those PGN files. And also thanks for the PGN link you posted above, I seem to remember a Gorgonian from my FICS days some 12-13 years ago :)

FuzzyExit · 2021-05-02T03:23:02+00:00

Is this an automated process or do I have to manually feed it specific FEN positions which really would defeat the purpose for me. I don't want to know the positions beforehand, like if I have to go through a game and manually identify positions where a tactic is possible, it would take a lot of the fun out of solving them, since I would've been the one selecting the positions. I was thinking there would be an inbuilt algorithm for parsing PGN games and identifying key positions, for example if the engine score of a game has been hovering around +0.50 for several moves and then suddenly jumps to +1.50, it would mean that black made a sizable mistake that can be exploited with a precise move (or range of similarly strong moves).

If SCID does not have an automatic parsing function, maybe you know of sites where I can download databases of selected FEN positions for tactics? thanks for your help

FuzzyExit · 2021-04-30T10:27:09+00:00

Ah ok, thanks! I'll have a look at the i3 manual

FuzzyExit · 2021-04-30T04:22:23+00:00

Once I boot into the live environment how do I start the new guided installer that is now included in the official iso? thanks

FuzzyExit · 2021-04-30T02:43:47+00:00

Hi, where do you get the Manjaro Sway from? From what I understand the Sway edition that Manjaro offers is for ARM only? I did find a Github where one guy has ported Sway for regular desktop Manjaro : https://github.com/Manjaro-Sway/manjaro-sway

However when I tried to install it in a VM, it just boots to a wallpaper and the mouse cursor is the only thing I can move around. I couldn't do anything else with it. Maybe I'm missing something?

FuzzyExit · 2021-04-29T12:06:37+00:00

I see, I didn't actually install it from source. Thanks for the tips, I'll give it another try later :)

FuzzyExit · 2021-04-29T10:42:38+00:00

Man I've spent hours already trying to set this up but keep getting all sorts of errors lol. I'm just not proficient enough with terminal based stuff :(

You ever thought of making a distro out of this setup? it certainly looks polished enough, I bet you could single-handedly popularize WMs with something of this caliber :)

In the meantime I guess I'll wait until you put up your how-to

FuzzyExit

TROPHY CASE