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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

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