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Subject: Re: what about chess tiger II ported to linux !?

Author: Andrew Williams

Date: 15:53:22 09/30/00

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On September 30, 2000 at 17:18:59, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

>On September 30, 2000 at 01:28:34, Pete Galati wrote:
>
>>On September 29, 2000 at 22:42:15, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>
>>>On September 29, 2000 at 18:44:13, Pete Galati wrote:
>>>
>>>>On September 29, 2000 at 17:48:15, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On September 29, 2000 at 17:13:30, ERIQ wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>I for one would like to see either chess tiger II, rebel 11, or junior 6 for
>>>>>>linux or at least a good reason not to make a port like that as the unix
>>>>>>community seems to be growing and I think for the most part like chess. :)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>I think I could port the Chess Tiger engine to Linux in less than a week, as it
>>>>>is entirely written in C. I use the GCC compiler everyday to work under DOS
>>>>>(actually the DJGPP), so compiling to Linux would only involve system-specific
>>>>>issues, probably no compiler specific issues.
>>>>>
>>>>>The Tiger engine has been recently ported to another system running a different
>>>>>processor family than the x86, so I guess I have solved most of the portability
>>>>>issues by now.
>>>>>
>>>>>The only problems I see are commercial ones. Are there enough people ready to
>>>>>pay for Linux software? Is the system going to be improved and more user
>>>>>friendly? Are there good copy-protection schemes for Linux?
>>>>>
>>>>>When we get a positive answer to all these questions, then we will certainly go
>>>>>for Linux.
>>>>>
>>>>>I know the system is evolving quickly, and a lot of energies are now focused on
>>>>>it. I hope Linux will offer a serious alternative to Windows in the near future.
>>>>>Wait and see...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>    Christophe
>>>>
>>>>If I were you (I'm not) I would consider approaching it like what was done with
>>>>Gandalf for Winboard, only do a Chess Tiger for Xboard.  You'd be the first kid
>>>>on the block to offer a commercial Xboard engine (for whatever that's worth)
>>>>
>>>>Pete
>>>
>>>wrong, you can buy diep from me for xboard. it works perfect,
>>>see how it runs like the sun under fics.
>>
>>As usual, I didn't check my facts.  Are you using a Linux version of Diep in
>>tournaments?
>
>Bob regurarly offered DIEP to run at a quad xeon for several tournaments,
>then i go for linux obviously.
>
>Now i have myself a cool system: dual PIII800, diep is 10.8% faster
>with the msvc compiler which only works of course under windows, as
>with the gcc compiler at a PIII. At PII the difference is less, more
>like 8.5%, not to mention also that a PIII itself is over 17% faster
>as a PII, Xeon is 7% faster as a PII.
>
>So a quad xeon would be speedup * 0.9 * 0.9 * 550 = speedup * 445.5
>   a dual               2.0     * 1.0 * 1.0 * 800 = 1600
>
>So to get a quad xeon 550 as fast as a dual PIII800 for diep then i
>would need to get a speedup of 3.6
>
>Nevertheless the advantage of a local machine without internet
>problems is always a big one, and a quad is always outperforming
>a dual somehow. It *does* get that nodes a second. Even if it
>searches complete bullshit with 1.5 processor, then still it
>is filling hashtable which can be used later.
>
>So despite the theoretical equalness of a quad to a dual for DIEP,
>the quad always outperforms the dual practical, basically
>because of the better working hashtables, not to mention the fact
>that my harddisk is dead slow!
>
>The huge disadvantage is that it runs remote, in paderborn, both
>at ipcc and especially at wccc i wasn't able to connect to the usa
>at all (wccc99 2 out of the 7 games!),
>as in germany crucial nodes that are between netherlands and germany
>seem to turn off their computer in weekends.
>
>This weak internet in europe at least and especially the huge lag
>to the USA is very frustrating.
>
>Yet it's obvious that running under linux has more advantages as just
>making use of the generous offer from Bob!
>
>One of the big advantages is that you have more test possibilities,
>like there are many commercial boundscheckers nowadays for windows,
>but there is a great free working boundchecker for gcc 2.95.2, which
>i use nowadays regurarly to check DIEP everywhere out.
>
>Also the fact that it's the only serious competitor for the PC with
>windows is an important issue. If there would be other OSes as windows
>i doubt i would have done that much effort for linux!
>
>Yet one thing that sucks bigtime is graphical development under X windows.
>
>There is nothing to nil for X windows to use in an easy way.
>
>I am NOT gonna make a diep graphical interface under linux at all actually
>without real big commercial interests, the possibility to sell a version or 2
>is not what is tempting to do a big job like that.
>
>What you need is a good cross development platform. There is nothing working
>well in this area.
>
>I tried Qt, WxWindows i tried really hard, and some other stuff. tcl/tk i
>already tried years ago.
>
>It all sucks bigtime. I develop in first place for windows, linux is second.
>
>So basically only my engine works under linux. The whole interface is
>all win32 API-C SDK code.
>
>>>but sure christophe won't get rich. i doubt he'll sell more as
>>>a single copy. for sure he won't sell it to the 'pete' here.
>>
>>Oh, you mean me, or the several people here that stole my first name?  Yeah,
>>it's hard to say, Ed's company does a good job of marketing Chess programs, but
>>you're not really set up for doing that yourself.  Does anyone other than
>>yourself sell Diep, such as ICD, or Gambitsoft?
>
>Not at the moment, but what do i have to sell except a tough to install
>winboard version?
>
>Not to mention the xboard version. No one ever gets that to work
>without learning first a bit about shared memory from linux.
>

Are you talking about your program or programs in general? Mine
works fine and I know nothing about shared memory in Linux.

>If you by accident kill diep somehow you need to use
>(or use shell script performing) commands like
>  ipcs
>  ipcrm shm <segment number>
>
>If you don't do that, and diep is control-c-ed twice, then linux
>is hung. Only getting out power cable works then.
>

I don't understand this at all. Is it a consequence of your program
being SMP?

Andrew



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