Skip to main content

Scid vs PC installation guide - Ubuntu (Mint, Debian etc.)

Scid vs PC

Scid vs PC is definitely the best and most comprehensive chess software for Linux.  Unfortunately I struggled quite a bit to get it up and running.

Before I start: You might prefer to watch the video. Otherwise keep on reading.


Open a terminal and execute the following commands

sudo apt-get install auto-apt build-essential
sudo auto-apt update-local
sudo auto-apt update
sudo auto-apt updatedb

Now make sure you got both tcl8.5-dev and tk8.5-dev installed

sudo apt-get install tcl8.5-dev tcl8.5
sudo apt-get install tk8.5-dev tk8.5

Some users are reporting problems on Ubuntu 14.04.
sudo apt-get install tcl8.6-dev tcl8.6
sudo apt-get install tk8.6-dev tk8.6 libgcj15-dev

The 'x' refers to the current release: e.g. 4.9.tgz
download scid vs pc: http://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/files/source/scid_vs_pc-4.9.tgz/download 
tar -xzf scid_vs_pc-4.xx.tgz
cd scid_vs_pc-4.x 
sudo auto-apt run ./configure
sudo auto-apt run make
sudo auto-apt run make install
This should work. If you encounter any problems, please let me know.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous19 December 2012 at 13:09

    thank you so much!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous31 December 2012 at 13:07

    thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous15 May 2013 at 07:09

    I've been looking for this for 2 hours. Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous13 March 2014 at 05:44

    Thanks for this post. Gave up on this already once but after giving it one more go, I found this post and got the scid vs pc installed in 5 minutes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous4 May 2014 at 13:48

    Perfect! I tried again and again to get it running, but with your guide, it actually worked! Only thing I had to add was to install "g++" (just type: sudo apt-get install g++), that was is. Thanks! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous15 September 2014 at 19:45

    I have the same issue as you do. I think this doesn't work no longer on Ubuntu 14.04. Did you find a solution yet? If so, please let me know.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous15 November 2014 at 07:01

    I was not able to install with the above instructions. Here is my solution:
    1) download the most recent version of the scid_vs_pc source package:
    http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/
    2) follow the instructions on the same hyperlink:
    http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/

    ReplyDelete
  8. Michaël30 November 2014 at 17:02

    Thanks, worked for me (Linux Mint Debian Edition 201403 - 32 bits).

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous8 December 2014 at 21:12

    Gracias, siguendo tus intrucciones pude instalar el softwear, no conocia el gestor de paquetes " auto-apt" Seria de gran ayuda explicaras el efecto de los comandos.mi sistema ubuntu 14.04 corrirendo en una pentium iii 512 mb ram y 800 mhz de micro procesador ( pieza de museo ..! jeje )

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous16 December 2014 at 15:09

    Thanks for your instructions, now it is easy for a bloody beginner like me to install this programm. (Lubuntu 14.04)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous26 December 2014 at 19:08

    The libraries aren't in the right place, creationg symbolic links solves this problem :
    $ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtcl8.6.so.0 /usr/lib/libtcl8.6.so.0
    $ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtk8.6.so.0 /usr/lib/libtk8.6.so.0

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous22 January 2015 at 04:44

    Where does the download need to be located? I guess that´s my problem as this is what I get when I try the last step:
    tar (child): scid_vs_pc-4.13.tgz: Cannot open: No such file or directory
    tar (child): Error is not recoverable: exiting now
    tar: Child returned status 2
    tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous21 March 2015 at 07:26

    I'm using Mint17.1 Mate and needed an extra package 'xotcl-shells' to get Tcl & Tk working. As to where the Scid vs Pc package should go this easy 'how to compile' should help Deb/Ubuntu etc, users https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CompilingEasyHowTo
    Many thanks for the guide.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous13 April 2015 at 16:02

      Running Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon and the instructions do not install Scid_vs_PC for me.

      auto-apt run ./configure

      Returns the following error:
      Location of "tk.h" : not found

      Delete
    2. Anonymous19 April 2015 at 22:40

      Returns the following error:
      Location of "tk.h" : not found

      I've compiled this twice on mint-cinnamon-17 and once on mint-mate-17, I come back here to get a reminder of package names, if you get the above error message then you need to make sure you have the 8.6 tcl/tk pakages and xotcl-shells. Some of the commands from the original have changed so I'll go through the steps that work for me. Apart from scid-vs-pc all packages are available in Software Manager.
      1.Install:
      build-essential
      checkinstall
      tcl8.6-dev
      tcl8.6
      tk8.6-dev
      tk8.6
      xotcl-shells
      2. $ sudo apt update (not sure if necessary, but I do it.)
      3. $ sudo chown $USER /usr/local/src
      4. unpack scid-vs-pc in /usr/local/src
      5. $ cd /usr/local/src/scid_vs_pc
      6. $ ./configure
      7. $ make
      8. $ sudo checkinstall (this replaces the old sudo make install cmd)
      9. $ scid (to launch)

      Optional:
      I like to add scid to my menu for easy launch. Right click mint menu icon, select configure, open the menu editor, Games, New Item, Name: scid, Command: scid, (you can add scid.pgn icon here too), OK.

      Again many thanks to Mike M.

      Delete
    3. vaiuuii31 January 2016 at 19:32

      Thank you very much, Sir! It worked for me! :)

      Delete
  14. Anonymous13 April 2015 at 22:50

    Solved Install for Mint users:
    sudo apt-get install tk8.6-dev tk8.6 libgcj14-dev

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous17 September 2015 at 21:08

    Mint fix, mentioned above (sudo apt-get install tk8.6-dev tk8.6 libgcj14-dev) still works!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous19 December 2015 at 05:34

    Thanks, worked for me ubuntu 15.10

    ReplyDelete
  17. sayantan4 April 2016 at 23:52

    did not worked with your ln stuff sorry to inform you

    ReplyDelete
  18. Pablo Matus23 April 2016 at 04:37

    Hello, thanks a lot for your tutorial.
    I'm trying to install Scid vs Pc on Ubuntu 16.04, but I don't understand why, the command line sudo auto-apt run doesn't work, :(
    Do you have any idea about how fix it ??

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous9 June 2016 at 23:23

    Re no "tcl.h" - I had the same problem with make not finding "tcl.h" and exiting. To fix-it just edit the "TCL_INCLUDE" var in the Makefile and make it point to the correct dir where tcl.h actually resides and all is good. I just had to add the "tcl8.6" dir to the include path and then make worked like a charm. Took me a while to work it out as I'm not a programmer. Hope this helps someone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous1 December 2016 at 06:54

      Thanks so much for this tutorial. Running Ubuntu 16.04 here, and I also had the "tcl.h" problem. Fixed now thanks to the above advice from Anonymous. To be clear, Makefile's "TCL_INCLUDE" line now looks like this: "TCL_INCLUDE = -I/usr/include/tcl8.6"

      Delete
  20. Unknown10 June 2016 at 06:21

    Using Ubuntu 16.02, everything worked fine exept for the last command "sudo auto-apt run make install". Then I simply used the command "sudo apt install scid" and it worked! Thanks for the help.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Mats Bergsten18 September 2016 at 13:00

    Thank you!
    I use Ubuntu 16.04 but I got a compilation error during the make
    phase. I just commented a line (nr 391) in features.h
    #include
    and then it was ok. (it says in a comment that that include is unneccesary)

    ReplyDelete
  22. D'Walerunni17 October 2016 at 16:36

    Thanks man!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous5 December 2016 at 12:03

    Hi, I am running Linux Mint Cinnamon. I have been following this guide, but when running the configure command, I get this error:

    Location of Tcl 8.6 library: not found
    Location of Tk 8.6 library: not found

    Any suggestions, please?

    ReplyDelete
  24. MarkH4 January 2017 at 13:09

    I've worked as a programmer, but I'm new to Linux Ubuntu 16.04, so it has taken me a while.

    I noticed one person suggested apt-get for scid, but we want scid_vs_pc. Now that I've got it installed properly (I think), I'm wondering if we actually start scid_vs_pc by running simply 'scid'?

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous12 February 2017 at 11:42

    Thats work for me after update and then upgrade my system..I was with 14.04.2 and upgrade to 14.04.5.

    I didn't install libgcj14-dev previosly so when I was installing the system asked me to install libgcj14-dev and that works for me too.

    thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Stefan9 December 2017 at 06:26

    Under Linux Mint and Linux Lite:

    sudo apt-get install tk8.6-dev tk8.6 libgcj16-dev

    tar -xzf scid_vs_pc-4.18.1.tgz
    cd scid_vs_pc-4.18.1
    ./configure
    sudo make install
    scid


    Works perfect for me.

    ReplyDelete
  27. frank12 February 2018 at 02:30

    I couldn't get Scid vs PC to work at all. I do have regular Scid. Why don't they just put S vs PC in the repository? Until they do I will do without it.

















    s

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 01101001b23 May 2018 at 22:54

      Hi Frank.
      Just my 2 cents. My case was exactly the opposite. I had Scid vs PC working flawlessly... and I decided to install Scid too, but from repositories.
      It installed perfectly. Surprise came when I couldn't initiate Scid because Scid vs PC showed instead.
      The problem is running "scid" is how Scid (and Scid vs PC *too*) is invoked.
      So I uninstalled Scid and "problem" solved (or not solved at all if you wish).

      Delete
  28. 01101001b23 May 2018 at 23:05

    I see I didn't thank you for these instructions. Following them I could install Scid vs PC long time ago. Delayed thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous22 August 2018 at 15:45

    I have followed all the instructions but I have not succeeded. I tried several times but I always get "can not find package libgcj15-dev", I do not know how I can solve this. I'm using Ubuntu 18.04

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous26 September 2018 at 08:00

      You could solve this adding repositories of Ubuntu 16.04.

      sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

      Copy:

      deb http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial main restricted
      deb http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial universe
      deb http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial multiverse

      Then:

      sudo apt-get update

      sudo apt-get install libgcj15-dev

      Delete
  30. Michaël28 March 2019 at 18:52

    Hey dudes,


    Overcame some issues to install on Linux Mint 19.1 and wanted to share, hoping it will help.


    apt-cache search tcl8 (to see which Tcl/Tk are available, here we 8.5 and 8.6)

    sudo apt-get install tcl8.5-dev tcl8.5
    sudo apt-get install tk8.5-dev tk8.5
    sudo apt-get install tcl8.6-dev tcl8.6
    sudo apt-get install tk8.6-dev tk8.6
    sudo apt-get install build-essential

    tar -xzf scid_vs_pc-4.19.tgz
    cd scid_vs_pc-4.19
    ./configure
    make
    sudo checkinstall (creates a .deb file which is automatically installed)

    scid





    NOTES

    1) sudo apt-get install auto-apt did not work, but is not necessary

    2) sudo apt-get build-dep scid : could have helped, but did not work

    3) I got a "Error: compiler g++ does not support C++11.", fixed by
    installing build-essential package

    4) On "./compile", I got
    "Location of "tk.h": not found"
    coupled with
    "The default Makefile was written.
    You will need to edit it before you can compile Scid."

    5) sudo apt-get install apt-file could help determining which package
    contains a given file, for instance apt-file search tk.h (see
    https://askubuntu.com/questions/8060/configure-error-unable-to-locate-tk-includes)

    6) To uninstall package created with checkinstall: dpkg -r scid-vs-pc

    7) To install to Mint menu, following comment on this page could help:
    Anonymous19 April 2015 at 22:40

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OsmocomBB - Hardware and Software Setup - Tutorial (Motorola C118)

OsmocomBB is an Open Source GSM Baseband software implementation. By using the sofware on a compatible phone (e.g. Motorola C118), you are able to make and receive phone calls, send and receive SMS, etc. based on Free Software only.       Hardware PL2303HX USB Serial To RS232 TTL Chip 2.5 mm audio jack Motorola C118 (E88) This is a typical pin-out of a 2.5 mm audio jack: L (Left Signal) Tip 1 Green R (Right Signal) Ring 2 Red GND (Ground) Sleeve 3 Bare Copper You need to soldier the 2.5mm audio jack to the USB Serial To RS232 TTL Chip, whereas TxD is at the tip of the plug RxD is at the middle contact GND is the outer contact  Software Connect the phone to your PC and check if it is being recognized. dmesg | grep tty user@user:~$ dmesg | grep tty [    0.000000] console [tty0] enabled [ 6522.143379] usb 3-2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0 To make sure everything is working, install cu and c
9 comments
Read more

Banana Pi: Temperature Sensor (DS18B20) - Tutorial

Requirements --> Banana Pi running Raspbian for Banana Pi --> Breadboard --> Jumper Wires --> DS18b20 --> 4.7K Ohm resistor --> Breakout cobbler   Hardware Setup Refer to the graphic for the correct wiring. Make sure the Banana Pi is switched off to prevent any possible damage. Software Setup Double check the wiring and boot the device. In order to be able to access the temperature data, we need to make some minor adjustments to the script.bin file , which is a binary configuration file used by Allwinner SOC. sudo apt-get install git git clone https://github.com/linux-sunxi/sunxi-tools cd sunxi-tools make #location of the script.bin file cd /boot/bananapi/ #get the fex file sudo /home/bananapi/sunxi-tools/bin2fex script.bin bananapi.fex #edit the fex file sudo nano bananapi.fex #add the following at the end, save (CTRL + O) and close [w1_para] gpio = 4 #.fex back to .bin sudo /home/bananapi/sunxi-tools/fex2bin bananapi.fex script.bin sud
14 comments
Read more