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2 <title>XBoard - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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23 <p>XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess in all its major
24 forms, including international chess, xiangqi (Chinese chess),
25 shogi (Japanese chess) and Makruk, in addition to many minor variants such as
26 Losers Chess, Crazyhouse, Chess960 and Capabanca Chess. It displays a
27 chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and loads
28 and saves games in Portable Game Notation (PGN). It serves as a
29 front-end for many different chess services, including:</p>
32 Chess engines that will run on your machine and play a game against
33 you or help you analyze, such as GNU Chess, Crafty, or many
36 <li>Chess servers on the Internet, where you can connect to play chess
37 with people from all over the world, watch other users play, or just
38 hang out and chat.</li>
40 <li>Correspondence chess played by electronic mail. The CMail program
41 automates the tasks of parsing email from your opponent, playing his
42 moves out on your board, and mailing your reply move after you've
45 <p>XBoard runs on Unix and Unix-like systems that use the X Window
50 <p>The project also includes a port to 32-bit Windows systems called
53 <p>You can find the download section for Winboard at
54 the <a href="http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewforum.php?f=19">Winboard
57 <p>Development for Winboard, reporting bugs and any other requests can
58 also be done at the same places as for XBoard (see below).</p>
60 <h3>Testers needed</h3>
61 <p> Our next versions will have some major improvements and we are always looking for people who are willing to test those and give us feedback or new ideas. If you are interested, please send an email to our list at <a href="mailto:xboard-devel@gnu.org"><xboard-devel@gnu.org></a>.</p>
63 <h3>GTK developer needed</h3>
64 <p> We are also working on merging Winboard and XBoard back into one version using a cross platform GTK-front end. This will help us clean up the code and make things like internationalization easier. Progress is slow though, so if you know want to help out there are lots of things waiting to be done. Email the <a href="mailto:xboard-devel@gnu.org">mailing list</a> for more information. </p>
66 <h3>Downloading XBoard</h3>
68 <h4>stable version</h4>
70 <p>The current stable version
71 is: <a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">4.4.4</a></p>
73 <p>It can be found on the main GNU ftp server:
74 <a href="http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/</a> (via http) and
75 <a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/</a> (via ftp).</p>
77 <p>It can also be found on one of the <a href="/prep/ftp.html">mirrors
79 please <a href="http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/xboard">use a mirror</a> if
82 <p>Precompiled versions are available
83 for <a href="http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Factory:/Contrib/">openSUSE</a>
84 and <a href="http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/xboard">debian-squeeze</a>
85 (if you know of other distribution that package it, please let us
88 <h4>development version</h4>
90 <p>It would be great if people would like to help in the developing process. We can use all kinds of help, from people who just use the software and have a feature request (send them to developer mailing list), to people who can update/check the documentation and especially people who test development versions (send problems to the developer mailing list). </p>
92 <p>At the moment we have three developer versions:</p>
95 <li>A snapshot of the 4.4.5 branch:
96 Nothing here at the moment (just released 4.4.4).
97 <!-- This will become the next stable version. <a href="ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">4.4.4.20100806</a>.
98 A precompiled version will available soon for <a href="http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/apersaud/">openSUSE</a>. -->
101 <li>A snapshot of the master branch: <a href="ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">master-20100806</a>. <br />
102 The master branch at this moment also includes changes that will go in future version, but not necessary in the next release. Since this includes lots of changes, chances for major bugs are higher. A precompiled version will be available soon for <a href="http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/apersaud/">openSUSE</a> and <a href="http://packages.debian.org/experimental/xboard">debian</a>.
105 <li>A snapshot of the gtk branch: <a href="ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/">gtk-20100806</a>. <br />
106 In the gtk branch we are working on merging Winboard and Xboard back together using a gtk-frontend. This code doesn't work 100% yet, it will crash quite often, but you can almost play normal games against a machine already. A precompiled version is available for <a href="http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/apersaud/">openSUSE</a>.</li>
109 <h5>How to build the development version</h5>
112 <p> After cloning the git-repository, do ./autogen.sh, ./configure and then a make.</p>
115 <p> Unpack the tar ball and do ./configure followed by make.</p>
118 <p>For development sources and other information, please see
119 the <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/">XBoard project
120 page</a> at <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org">savannah.gnu.org</a>.</p>
122 <p>A snapshot of the latest source code for all branches is available at
123 the <a href="http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/xboard.git">git
124 repository</a> on Savannah.</p>
128 <p>You can also find an archive of old versions on <a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/xboard/">the ftp server</a>.</p>
130 <h3>Documentation</h3>
132 <p><a href="manual/">Documentation for XBoard</a> is available online,
133 as is <a href="/manual/">documentation for most GNU software</a>. You
134 may also find more information about XBoard by
135 running <em>info xboard</em> or <em>man xboard</em>, or by
136 looking at <em>/usr/doc/xboard/</em>,
137 <em>/usr/local/doc/xboard/</em>, or similar directories on your system.</p>
139 <p>The Chess Engine Communication Protocol can be found <a href="engine-intf.html">here</a>.</p>
143 <p>These are screenshots taken from version 4.4.0 (click to enlarge).</p>
144 <a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0.png" alt=" [screenshot normal game] " height="200" /></a>
145 <a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-variant.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-variant.png" alt=" [screenshot bughouse game] " height="200" /></a>
146 <a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-showgi.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-showgi.png" alt=" [screenshot bughouse game] " height="200" /></a>
147 <a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-petite.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-petite.png" alt=" [screenshot bughouse game] " height="200" /></a>
148 <a href="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-XQ.png"><img src="graphics/xboard-4.4.0-XQ.png" alt=" [screenshot bughouse game] " height="200" /></a>
155 <li> <a href="http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html">Tim's original pages</a> are still available.</li>
156 <li> XBoard can also run engines that use the UCI protocol, with
157 the aid of the Polyglot protocol adapter. A new Polyglot
158 version, (1.4.30b), especially adapted to support the new
159 features of XBoard 4.4.0, can be
160 found <a href="http://alpha.uhasselt.be/Research/Algebra/Toga/polyglot-release/">here</a>.</li>
163 <li> Incomplete list of computer engines that work with XBoard
165 <li><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/chess/">GNU chess</a></li>
166 <li><a href="http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/CVfairy.html">Fairy-Max</a></li>
167 <li><a href="http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/lastupdates.htm">A list with lots of engines</a></li>
168 <li><a href="http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/XQ.html">List of Xiangqi engines</a></li>
169 <li> other popular engines are crafty, phalanx, fruit, toga2, glaurung, ... </li>
172 <li> Chess server you can connect to using XBoard
174 <li> <a href="http://www.freechess.org"> Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) </a></li>
175 <li> <a href="http://www.chessclub.com/"> The Internet Chess Club </a> </li>
178 <li> Other interfaces
180 <li> <a href="http://www.bergo.eng.br/eboard/">eboard</a> </li>
185 <h3>Frequently Asked Question(FAQ)</h3>
187 <p>If you have any questions, please check out our <a href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a>.</p>
190 <h3>Mailing Lists and Discussion Forums</h3>
192 <h4>mailing lists</h4>
194 <p>XBoard has two mailing lists:
195 <a href="mailto:bug-xboard@gnu.org"><bug-xboard@gnu.org></a> and
196 <a href="mailto:xboard-devel@gnu.org"><xboard-devel@gnu.org></a>.</p>
198 <p>The main discussion list is
199 <a href="mailto:xboard-devel@gnu.org"><xboard-devel@gnu.org></a>,
200 and is used to discuss most aspects of XBoard, including development
201 and enhancement requests. Please send bug reports
202 to <a href="mailto:bug-xboard@gnu.org"><bug-xboard@gnu.org></a>.</p>
204 <p>Announcements about XBoard and most other GNU software are made on
205 <a href="mailto:info-gnu@gnu.org"><info-gnu@gnu.org></a>.</p>
207 <p>To subscribe to these or any GNU mailing lists, please send an empty
208 mail with a Subject: header of just <tt>subscribe</tt> to the relevant
209 -request list. For example, to subscribe yourself to the GNU
210 announcement list, you would send mail to <a
211 href="mailto:info-gnu-request@gnu.org?Subject=subscribe"><info-gnu-request@gnu.org></a>.
212 Or you can use the <a
213 href="http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu">mailing list web
216 <h4>discussion forums</h4>
218 <p>A very active forum is the <a href="http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/">WinBoard Forum</a> (where our current main developer HGM can be found).</p>
220 <h3>Reporting Bugs and Requesting New Features</h3>
222 <p> If you think you found a bug, please check the <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=xboard">bugtracker</a> for open and already closed bugs. If you found a new bug, please, file a bug-report either via our bug-related email list or in the <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=xboard">bugtracker</a>.
224 <p> For feature requests, please use our mailinglist: <a href="mailto:xboard-devel@gnu.org"><xboard-devel@gnu.org></a>.</p>
226 <!-- will be in one of the next releases
227 -<h3>Translating XBoard</h3>
229 <p>To translate XBoard's messages into other languages, please see the <a
230 href="http://translationproject.org/domain/xboard.html">Translation Project
231 page for XBoard</a>. If you have a new translation of the message strings,
232 or updates to the existing strings, please have the changes made in this
233 repository. Only translations from this site will be incorporated into
234 XBoard. For more information, see the <a
235 href="http://translationproject.org/html/welcome.html">Translation
236 Project welcome page</a>.
239 <p>Please remember that development of XBoard, and GNU in general, is a
240 volunteer effort, and you also can contribute. For information, please
241 read <a href="/help/">How to help GNU</a>.</p>
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