CHESS(1)

📦
version 6.3.0 · 8 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

💖 CHESS(1) — like, the GNU Chess manual but make it cute 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because today we're learning about Chess — as in GNU Chess, the actual legendary chess program from the GNU era. this is a User Commands page, so yeah, it's the real deal. no cap. 👑

✨ NAME ✨

Chess — GNU Chess, obviously. the name says it all, she's iconic like that. 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

gnuchess [OPTION]...

that's it. that's the whole vibe. you give her options, she gives you chess. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

GNU Chess.

She plays the game of chess. that's the whole job description, and she eats every single time. periodt. 🍓

💅 OPTIONS 💅

here's the whole menu, no skips, no shortcuts, every single one:

  • -h, --help — shows you this help text and then dips out. bye! 👋
  • -v, --version — spills the version info and exits. main character behavior.
  • -q, --quiet — makes the program go silent on startup. no small talk, just chess. 🤫
  • --silent — literally the same as -q. twins. same energy. 💜
  • -x, --xboard — starts up in engine mode. she's not here to chat, she's here to compute. 🔥
  • -p, --post — starts up showing her thinking. she's being transparent with you, queen. 💭
  • -e, --easy — disables thinking during the opponent's time. she's being chill about it. 😌
  • -m, --manual — enables manual mode.
  • -u, --uci — enables the UCI protocol, aka she behaves like a UCI engine. ⚠️ heads up: this one is incompatible with the other options, so don't try to stack her with anything else, it's not giving.
  • -M SIZE, --memory=SIZE — tells her how much memory in MB to use for the hashtable. give her room to breathe. 🫶
  • -a FILENAME, --addbook=FILENAME — compiles book.bin from the pgn book FILENAME. bookworm era. 📚
  • -g, --graphic — enables graphic mode. now she's pretty and smart. ✨

🌈 the fine print but make it fashion 🌈

okay so, tiny details that are actually kinda important:

  • the options xboard and post are accepted without leading dashes — that's for backward compatibility, bestie. old-school code still gets love. 🫶
  • moves are accepted either in standard algebraic notation (SAN) or in coordinate algebraic notation. both. she's flexible like that. 💁‍♀️
  • the file gnuchess.ini lets you set configuration options — BUT ⚠️ it gets ignored if you're using the --uci option. them's the rules.
  • wanna know the deets about those options? run info gnuchess. iykyk.
  • she looks for gnuchess.ini in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gnuchess/ and $HOME/.config/gnuchess/, in that order, and uses the first one she finds, if any. first come, first served, no drama. 🎀

😭 REPORTING BUGS 😭

found a bug? don't suffer in silence, tell the devs:

Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

this is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. 💖

⚠️ and there is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. fr fr, don't come for her if something breaks.

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

the full documentation for Chess lives in a Texinfo manual. if the info program and the Chess program are properly installed on your site, this command:

info gnuchess

should give you access to the complete manual. slay. 🦋

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖 this was GNU Chess 6.3.0, from August 2025 — go forth and checkmate, you absolute icon. 🏆👑✨

📦 where this page comes from