Installing SCID, ICOfY Base and Stockfish

It may come as a surprise, but installing these software is no big deal -- as long as you make the choices I made.  In this post, I keep switching the perspective ("you need to do this" vs "I did this"). I hope it won't confuse / irritate you too much.

First, the system configuration, etc...

I use a 1.5yr old Dell 1525 Inspiron Laptop.OK, this one was not free. I paid good money for it (about INR 36,000/-). I didn't pay for Windows because I've already been using Linux on my older computers for several years.

I use Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Operating System on it. This one was and is definitely free.

• Windows users: No worries. It should be possible to use SCID et al., just as easily in Windows too.
• Linux users: If you use another flavor of Linux, the software should still work, with some minor differences in the installation procedure.

For Software Package Management, I use Adept Manager. This wasn't included with the OS, but was a free download, using the default package manager (that did come with the OS). This I did over a year ago (not for the purpose of the current project).

• Windows users: This is something like your "Add / Remove Programs" in your System Control Panel. The main difference is that in windows that is the only software package manager. In Linux there are multiple options. Some times it is good to have choice. Sometimes not. In this case, I like the choice. In windows, most of these software come with self-installing .exe files. So you just download and run the downloaded file; no need to visit that "Add / Remove Programs".
• Linux users: If you use another package manager, that should be okay too. For most users, it is recommended to use a (any) package manager that goes with your Linux distro. You may not get the latest version, but it is worth compromising in that area -- unless of course, you are so serious that nothing but the latest & greatest will do for you. In that case though, I recommend that you consider using the commercial software .
• If you are a serious Linux developer, you do have the option of downloading the latest software and compiling it yourself (bypassing the package manager). It is not a one-time effort though. Everytime a updates/bug-fixes or a new version is released, you have to manually keep track and do it.

Downloading and Installing SCID:

OK, since I was using the package manager, I didn't have to search for download sites. I just searched for "chess" in my package manager search facility, selected SCID and told it to install. It was not a big download (< 5MB, if I remember right). Download & Install completed in less than 5 minutes. The latest I believe is SCID 4.2.2, but my package manager had only SCID 4.0. I didn't complain. I just didn't think it worth the trouble to get around my package manager.

I didn't do any significant configuring of the sofware. I just changed the board size, piece-style and colors to suit my taste.

I tried changing the fonts from the menus -- but found a bug there. It wasn't working. The main hitch was the "non proportional font" used to display the tables (in the db tree). The documentation was useless for this part. I looked around a bit and found a configuration file ~/.scid/config/options.dat. I used a text editor to find the line for fixed width font and changed it to really use a fixed width font:

set fontOptions(Fixed) {{DejaVu Sans Mono} 10 normal roman}

Then saved the file and restarted SCID. Bingo!

I did download the 40,000 positions opening book (from: this sourceforge location) for scidlet (the built-in engine) and placed it in the directory: /usr/share/scid/scidlet/ directory. I also changed the scidlet.ini file in the same directory to use this book. But I think this step was not really necessary because I've not been using scidlet.

The spellcheck file appeared useful (I am yet to see the downsides of not using it, because I started using it right-off!! ). I downloaded it from the same page as above. Used the SCID menu (under Tools) to configure it. That was the last part of installation/configuration of SCID.

I might do more later, but I guess it will all be unnecessary luxury!

Downloading and Installing ICOfY Base:

Okay, before trying this, I tried downloading the famous Ed Schroeder's 1.74mil DB. But after several hours of aborted downloads (I don't know whether the problem was with the server or my system), I gave up. Then searched some and found the ICOfY Base (yes, the f is lower-case). The current one is called the IB109, released in 2008. Make sure you pick up the PGN one. It is about 503 MB file compressed download -- has 5 (A-E) large PGN files in it.

I used by browser to download it. Uncompressed with the archive tool (Ark) that came with the OS into my local folder.

I tried using the pgnscid tool that came with SCID to load these, but I must've done something wrong, because it bombed with a segmentation fault. Fortunately, there was an easier way.

In SCID, first make sure you have a new (empty one is a good idea -- so that you know what exactly is in your DB) database. For this, from the opening screen, you simply do a File->New..., choose a directory and a file name. Your new blank DB is ready .

Now, Tools->Import File of PGN games... is good enough. You need to do this once for each of the 5 files that come with ICOfY Base. In less than 15 minutes, all the 4 million games were in!! Yooo hooo... I was dancing with joy. Then I wasted some time just browsing through the DB just to satisfy myself that I do really have them on my system!! But my cheap-thrills can be in another post.. so I'll move on! 

Downloading and Installing Stockfish:

Again, the lastest version I think, is 1.7.1. My package manager had 1.6. I went with my package manager just for the convenience. When I selected it, it also wanted me to download polyglot (a Winboard to UCI converter) and fruit (another chess engine). I thought for a while and felt both were unnecessary. I wasn't planning to use Rybka (I think it doesn't use UCI, but I may be wrong) and felt polyglot was included just for that. So I de-selected polyglot. I also didn't see any point why stockfish needed fruit. I just think the developers forgot to exclude it from the dependencies. I was right. When I completed the install, I didn't get any complaints from the software for either of these missing parts.

Didn't take long again. Within minutes, it was done.

Now, I had to plug it into SCID. That was easy too. Stockfish is a UCI engine (UCI is just a standard defined to interface chess engines with chess GUI). SCID 4.0 supports UCI directly. So in SCID, I did:

Tools->Analysis Engine...

In the dialog box that opened, I entered:

Name:= Stockfish 1.6

Command:= stockfish

Directory:= /home/sas3/.scid

Selected the checkbox: "UCI".

Then I clicked on the "Configure UCI Engine"  button and selected in Multiple Variations:= 3 (this will give only the top 3 lines in each analysis). None of the other parameters make much sense, so I just left them be, for a time when I become an advanced user!  Then I closed the windows properly (with Save/Close/whatever buttons).

That's it!! I was done!!!!

Now, how do I begin using it? I hope to write about it soonI hope you find this part useful.

I am using Crafty currently. Why did you choose Stockfish over Crafty? Is it because it is UCI?  Are there other benefits to UCI engines other than the ability to ask for multiple lines?

Not surprisingly, my choice was not a choice at all.

Any engine of reasonable strength was okay for me -- to get a fair idea of what other options might've been there beyond my grasp. I am not "yet" looking to become a GM  (is that a good-enough excuse to not try harder? ). So I just picked up the first one that my eyes ran across in my package manager. I didn't even bother to download the latest (as explained earliers).

That's understandable. I felt the same way, which is why I have just been using Crafty. It's much stronger than I can hope to be, and it's part of most Linux distros' package managers.

Unfortunately, Crafty is not a UCI engine. So I've had to install Fruit to make use of some of the functionality of Scid. I also just went with what was in my package manager (using Sabayon). 

While I don't have an option for the engine to output a configurable number of variations, I can now play games against an engine using Scid.  This is great for me, as it allows me to practice openings and play games in the same application I use for analysis, research and review.

And I'm sure I will learn more advantages as I play around with it some more!

It didn't work for me! First I couldn't even open it and then when i changed it to pgn i only got 8000 games and 633105 errors!

It didn't work for me! First I couldn't even open it and then when i changed it to pgn i only got 8000 games and 633105 errors!

Yeah ICOfY base gave me just over 9k games, with many players rated between 1100 and 1700.  One game I saw was between a 700 player and an 1100 player.  :P   I could use a base with games only by players 2400-2500 or above.  Has anybody seen one lately?

Checkout this link -> http://katar.weebly.com/2/post/2011/10/millbase-for-scid-update.html .

It consists of games where both players are >2200 or one player is >2400 and the other is >2000, and includes games from This Week in Chess thru Oct 8, 2011.  It contains >1.5 million games.

The creator of that game collection has an excellent two part SCID video tutorial (mentioned in another thread on this forum).  In that tutorial he explains how to update his game collection with new game lists from TWIC.  His explanation would also explain how to filter out lower rated games from the ICOfY collection.

Guys and gals, how do you install Scid on MAC after you have downloaded both the SCID files and Xcode? What next? Thanks for any help.