GNU Chess

You’d be right to think that we’ve missed an obvious chess playing option and that’s the Free Software Foundation’s GNUChess. This is another terminal-based game, but not as visually pleasing as chs. If this is a problem then there’s a GUI that plugs into the GNUChess engine and you can pick up things from there. It has the advantage of being GPLv3 licenced and is a middle-aged 36 years old.

You’ll find out all about GNUChess over at www.gnu.org/software/

chess. To get up and running in a terminal use sudo apt install gnuchess and start it with gnuchess. It uses the same standard algebraic moves as we’ve discussed and will present a board after each move. To get the GUI in place type sudo apt install xboard and use xboard to fire it up.

Alternatively, the GnomeChess game you’ll find in the Software Centre of most distros is based on the same GNUChess engine, which as it turns out has a relatively strong rating of 2,813 Elo points – that’s better than the playing abilities of a chess Grandmaster!