How to install PyChess on Debian 8.3

How to install PyChess on Debian 8.3

The PyChess is a free chess client software developed for GNU. It allows the users to play offline or online via the Free Internet Chess Server. It also incorporates a built-in chess engine and written in Python language. This tutorial explains on how to install PyChess on Debian 8.3.

Installation procedure

To start with the installation procedure, use the nano command to open the sources.list configuration file.

root@linuxhelp:~# nano /etc/apt/sources.list

The sources.list configuration file is opened. Insert these lines at the end of the file. Save and exit from the file.

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian jessie main

Execute the apt-get update command to update the apt sources-list in the target system.

root@linuxhelp:~# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ftp.debian.org jessie-updates InRelease [145 kB]
Ign http://ftp.de.debian.org jessie InRelease          
Get:2 http://ftp.de.debian.org jessie Release.gpg [2,373 B]
Get:3 http://ftp.de.debian.org jessie Release [148 kB]                 
Ign http://ftp.debian.org stable InRelease                                       
Get:4 http://ftp.debian.org jessie-updates/main Sources [15.5 kB]
Get:5 http://ftp.debian.org jessie-updates/contrib Sources [32 B]        
Get:6 http://ftp.debian.org jessie-updates/main amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,900 B]
Get:7 http://ftp.debian.org jessie-updates/contrib amd64 Packages [32 B]
Get:8 http://ftp.debian.org jessie-updates/contrib Translation-en [14 B]
Get:9 http://ftp.de.debian.org jessie/main amd64 Packages [6,776 kB]
Get:10 http://ftp.debian.org jessie-updates/main Translation-en/DiffIndex [2,704 B]  
Get:11 http://ftp.debian.org stable Release.gpg [2,373 B]                 
Get:12 http://ftp.debian.org jessie-updates/main amd64 2017-03-14-2025.02.pdiff [526 B]
.
.                       
Fetched 23.4 MB in 3min 52s (101 kB/s)                                                      
Reading package lists... Done

The target system is updated with the required repositories. Now install the Pychess package by executing the following command.

root@linuxhelp:~# apt-get install pychess
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  gaviotatb libgaviotatb1 libgtksourceview2.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-common python-glade2
  python-gst0.10 python-gtksourceview2 python-rsvg
Suggested packages:
  python-gtk2-doc python-gst0.10-dev python-gst0.10-dbg libgtksourceview2.0-dev
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gaviotatb libgaviotatb1 libgtksourceview2.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-common pychess python-glade2
  python-gst0.10 python-gtksourceview2 python-rsvg
0 upgraded, 9 newly installed, 0 to remove and 292 not upgraded.
Need to get 4,348 kB of archives.
After this operation, 17.0 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
.
.
Setting up pychess (0.12~beta3-1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u2) ...

Once the package is installed click on the Activities window and type the PyChess package name in the search bar. Click on the icon to run the application.

Wasn' t that an easy installation procedure? PyChess allows for virtually any other external chess engine to be used with it.