Chess on Kobo Clara?

[Dupin]

Hello, I have been a happy user of the excellent pbchess by vlasovsoft on my Kindle until it broke. I bought a Kobo Clara but found out pbchess is no longer supported. (tried it, it crashes at startup, switches off backlight, requires reboot)

Does someone know how to make it work?

Or, how much work would it be to port existing software to the Kobo environment:

- porting one or more chess engines (Stockfish, CuckooChess, etc.)
- porting a chess GUI (cutechess - it runs on Qt, other?)

Thanks!

[jaydee34983]

I would love to have some version of Chess on my Libra Colour...

[elaeoth]

I up this thread because I would also love it if someone knew an answer to tht problem!
Thanks guys!

[elinkser]

Compiling a Qt app for Kobo seems to be more challenging than it used to be:

User Szybet documented the process:
https://github.com/Szybet/nickel-qt-...main/README.md
* Since build process at https://github.com/Aryetis/qt5-kobo-platform-plugin was broken when last I checked, may need to compile plugin as Qt app as in:
https://github.com/Szybet/niAudio/bl...bo/qt-setup.md

Until somebody takes on that task, you can (* try to * - only tested on Clara HD, though versions of fbkeyboard/fbpad compiled to shared fbink lib are provided in https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...7&postcount=12 ) play with:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...62&postcount=8


* Not to imply that it couldn't be done in Rust, Python, Golang, Rmkit, or Koreader toolkit etc...
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...74&postcount=4

But how many of these platforms have been updated to the newest devices? Just fbink/Koreader?
May require a dev with a device (or a dev and a user with a device.able to help with testing)

https://github.com/NiLuJe/FBInk
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...06&postcount=7



***
***
***

Here's a simple chess game to try.

Use similar build steps as for PONG ON SDL ON SIXEL ON YAFT ON KOBO CLARA:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=20


https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpchess/

$ wget https://downloads.sourceforge.net/pr...s-1.2.1.tar.gz

$ tar zxvf mpchess-1.2.1.tar.gz

$ cd mpchess-1.2.1/

$ cd src/

$ source ~/koxtoolchain/refs/x-compile.sh kobo env bare

$ mkdir include

$ cp ../../libsixel-1.8.6/include/sixel.h include/

$ mkdir include/SDL

$ cp ../../SDL1.2-SIXEL-sixel/include/*.h include/SDL/

$ mkdir lib

$ cp ../../libsixel-1.8.6/src/.libs/libsixel.a lib/

$ cp ../../libsixel-1.8.6/src/.libs/libsixel.so.1.0.6 lib/libsixel.so.1

$ cp ../../SDL1.2-SIXEL-sixel/build/.libs/libSDL.a lib/

$ cp ../../SDL1.2-SIXEL-sixel/build/.libs/libSDL-1.2.so.0.11.4 lib/libSDL.so
$ cp ../../SDL1.2-SIXEL-sixel/build/.libs/libSDL-1.2.so.0.11.4 lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0

(Actually, all necessary files were included in files attached to Posts #19 and #20 of Crosscompile a web browser for the KOReader terminal https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=350054 )


$ nano -l chess.c

...
 26 #include <SDL/SDL.h>
...

$ nano -l makefile

 1 mpchess: chess.o 
 2         arm-kobo-linux-gnueabihf-gcc -o mpchess -Llib -lSDL -lm chess.o 
 3
 4 chess.o: chess.c
 5         arm-kobo-linux-gnueabihf-gcc -g -Iinclude -c chess.c
 6
 7 clean: 
 8         rm -f mpchess chess.o

$ make

$ file mpchess
mpchess: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3, for GNU/Linux 2.6.33, with debug_info, not stripped


On the desktop you would have compiled with corresponding versions of gcc and libs, and run in a sixel- enabled terminal like:
$ xterm -ti vt340


But on Kobo, you can run in Yaft, but you will need a keyboard like fbkeyboard2 (mentioned above), unless you run from SSH.


Copy the libsixel.a, libsixel.so.1, libSDL.a, and libSDL-1.2.so.0 libs to the /mnt/onboard/.adds/kordir/libs/ folder of your kobo.


Copy the mpchess binary to the /mnt/onboard/.adds/kordir/ folder on the Kobo:

To set the path and library path as in Post #14:
# . /korenv.sh

Run yaft terminal, leaving space for keyboard:
# YAFT_PERCENT=58 yaft

# . /korenv.sh

From a YAFT terminal:

# mpchess


Whoa, everything is tiny - that's a nice project to work on (for someone else )
Had to pkill mpchess from a separate session.


***
***
***