PicoChess v3.2 Images [09 Oct 2023]

[RandyR]

Hi everyone,

I have updated my images with some minor code changes from Dirk. MAME has been updated to v0.259 and Dirk has provided updated plugins for some of the newly supported retro machines (Robot Adversary, Chess King, to name a couple) as well as some custom artwork additions. He also updated the hal9000 voice and provided a hawking voice for your listening pleasure. Also, Al has provided some engine updates (Wasp v6.59, lc0 v0.30, CT800 v1.45, Texel v1.10).

Let me know if you run into any issues. The OS itself has not been updated on either image.

Here are the links to both images:

Lite (3.9 GB)

Desktop (4.8 GB)

Randy

[Andrea Gatti]

Randy, Dirk, Al, we'll never be grateful enough for the time and efforts you guys put into this project. THANK-YOU!

A new image! Ta-daaaa time to update!!!

Randy, I need a suggestion from your side: how can I bring these updates to my installation, now that I have customised it a bit to my liking?

Maybe it's a silly question, but if I re-started from your image from scratch, I would lose some scripts that I created, modifications into the /boot/config.txt, some other packages that I installed, and many others..

Is there a way, maybe just copying over some picochess directories from the new image to my installation, to retain my custom environment, while applying the "novelties" that this new image brings?

Thanks!

Andrea.

[Scally]

Hi Andrea, 

This is very easy if you have more than one RPi and sd card, as you can use rsync to send files or folders across devices.

Either that or copy your alterations to your pc/ipad etc using something like Termius then you can copy them back to your new installation.

Cheers,

Al.

[Scally]

Randy,

Engine RofChadeNN was also added …

See here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uqs6a9eyptd49nm/AABbOh2GROndlzqlGFDYufRpa?dl=0

Cheers,

Al.

[Andrea Gatti]

Thank-you, Al.

I own just one Rpi, so I would need to use your second suggested method. I think it's a bit complex, as I will need to keep a separate track of all that I modify/add/remove.

Is Termium a different thing compared to PuTTY that I use to access my Rpi via SSH? Can I still use PuTTY?

Thanks!

Andrea

[Scally]

Hi Andrea,

I suspect you can but I haven’t tried it.

I tend to use Apps on my iPad.

Documents to store everything and Termius to log onto my devices where I can edit and transfer files etc …

Cheers,

Al

[Andrea Gatti]

Al, many thanks, I will find out how to benefit from the latest update without giving up my little mods.

It's always interesting to see how others are doing things, what kind of apps are they using etc. I'm referring to you sharing your aliases with me recently, and now the pictures of how you keep track of modified documents, and access your many many many machines !

Thanks!

Andrea

[Randy Reade]

Hi Andrea,

Yes. That's always an issue when you customize your system. I also have a customized setup in one of my Pi machines. What I do is put the new image on an SD Card and use a USB card reader to mount it on my custom machine. I then use a graphical program called Meld, which I installed on the custom machine to compare the picochess folders between the machine and the SD card, looking at new or modified files. I can examine the differences within Meld (non-binary files) and either incorporate the changes within the files themselves (e.g., py, .ini, .uci files) and save the changes, or decide to copy the entire file over. For the most part, copying any .py files will give you an updated PicoChess system. For MAME updates I just replace the entire mame_emulation folder and remake the symlink I use for my roms. Most other changes are related to individual engine updates (which typically entail copying the engine and <engine>.uci files,  and possible a neural net file for the NNUE engines and new/updated engine.ini entries). It really depends on the amount of customization you did. It may be simpler to just redo those on the new image.

The actual python code my images are using is from Dirk's github site. I believe it is mentioned in the accompanying documentation.

But, what makes things really easier for me is that I use a laptop with a Linux OS installed. I can just mount the new image in RAM, plug in an SD Card from any customized Pi and easily copy and modify files using the file manager and/or Meld. All you need is a cheap laptop or even a Raspberry Pi. 😁

Randy

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[Randy Reade]

Hi AL,

Yes. I didn't add it since it doesn't support levels so I didn't see the benefit.

Randy

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[Marc Hamilton]

I was able to update without disturbing the format of the my custom image.   

1) I downloaded the desktop version

2) I brought the image up on a Pi and archived the picochess directory structure to a  file.  This will retain the file attributes   

3) I copied the archive to my current image and decompressed it to a folder in my home directory named "Pico" sudo tar -xvf picochess.tgz -C /home/pi/Pico

4) I deleted the files in the Pico folder I did not want overwritten (e.g., picochess.ini. voices folder, games folder, favorites.ini)

4) I then used the command: sudo rsync -a Pico/picochess/ /opt/picochess    ... don't forget the forward slash after the first directory (in red)

Everything looks the same, but I have the updated engines... 

[Randy Reade]

Hi Mark,

Just be aware that the picochess.ini.example template has been updated. You may want to copy your settings into it and save as picochess.ini. It's not crucial though. And the new & updated voices...

Randy

[Marc Hamilton]

I'll check out the contents of the picochess.ini.example file

Here's a better workflow of what I personally did:

How to synchronize a new Picochess Drop with current image

1)      Flash the new desktop image and place in the Raspberry using a 32GB Micro SD card

2)      Expand the file system

3)      Archive the /opt/picochess directory structure to external device (T5) from /opt

a.       sudo tar -cvf /media/pi/t5/picochess.tgz picochess

4)      Decompress the compressed file to /home/pi/Pico (from /media/pi/t5)

a.       sudo tar -xvf picochess.tgz -C /home/pi/Pico

5)      Remove files you do not want overwritten

a.       picochess.ini

b.       favorites.ini

c.       /engines/extra/pgn_engine.uci

d.       /talker

e.       /games

f.        /engines/pgn_engine

g.       /web/picoweb/static

6)      Delete the contents of the /manual folder to save diskspace

7)      Synchronize the /Pico folder with the /opt/picochess folder

a.       sudo rsync -a Pico/picochess/ opt/picochess

8)      After satisfactory testing, truncate the image to less that 16GB for the thumb drive

[RandyR]

Hi everyone,

A small update for my images to hopefully fix an issue when switching MAME machines - sometimes this would produce an engine error. Also, if you shut down the picochess.service while a MAME engine was being used, the system would hang until the mess process was forcibly killed. A slight addition to the picochess.service file kills the mess process immediately.

Let me know if you run into any issues. See the first post in this thread for the links.

If you would rather make the changes yourself, edit (as root, i.e. 'sudo nano') the /etc/systemd/system/picochess.service file and add the following line below the current ExecStop entry:

ExecStop=/usr/bin/pkill -9 -f mess

so that there are now two ExecStop entries.

The other change is in the /opt/picochess/uci/engine.py file. I have attached the updated file from Dirk's Github repo for that. Just replace the current file.

Randy

[Marc Hamilton]

...engine.py crashed me... check out the indent on line 43 - second line in this procedure. 

def generate_run_command(self, command_args, store_pid,

[Randy Reade]

OK. I'll check. Might be a typo in Dirk's repo.

Randy

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[Marc Hamilton]

The procedure is written in 2 lines but the second line has an indent problem. I fixed it and Pico fired up. 

[Randy Reade]

No, that line is OK. It's the same as the previous versions. Perhaps when you downloaded it it was altered? I'll test my image to make sure it's working.

Randy

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[Marc Hamilton]

That's odd... I just downloaded it again and ran it in PyCharm and it's showing  me indent issue (i.e., in red)

[RandyR]

I just downloaded the file off the forum and installed it and it works fine. The indentation is correct:

https://peps.python.org/pep-0008/

Randy

[RandyR]

Images test OK.

Randy

[Marc Hamilton]

If I bring it up in Windows Pycharm it shows an indent problem. If I move the same file to Linux and view it with Visual Studio, it doesn't have an indent issue. 

Without opening the file, I put it in the uci folder and Picochess would not load until I moved the line one space to the left.  I have no explanation for the issue. The file itself has carriage returns with the linefeeds. 

It works, so I'm happy...   

[Randy Reade]

The CR/LF should be OK in Linux for python files. In fact, most of them do have CR/LF. You could test this one - just rename it. I converted it to Linux.

Randy

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[Volker Schütt]

Hallo,

ich schreibe in deutsch und hoffe jemand versteht mich. :-)

Seit dem Image V3.2 habe ich kein WLAN mehr.

Wie kann ich mit diesem Image mein WLAN aktivieren?

Gruß Volker

[TobiasL]

„
Hast Du die beiden Dateien „ssh“ und „wpa_supplicant.conf“ auf die SD card kopiert ?

[Volker Schütt]

Hallo,

ich glaube das mein WLAN Cgip nicht erkannt wird.

Bei " sudo raspi-config" kommt:

 No wireless interface found

und

There was an error running option S1 Wireless LAN

Gruß Volker

[Andrea Gatti]

In mehreren Fällen hat Folgendes zur Behebung des Problems beigetragen:

1) Führen Sie raspi-config aus

2) Gehen Sie zu den erweiterten Optionen
3) Gehen Sie in die Netzwerkkonfiguration
4) Wählen Sie NetworkManager

Führen Sie den Neustart durch.

Wenn Sie nach dem Neustart erneut in die Raspi-Konfiguration und die Systemoptionen gehen, sollten Sie nun in der Lage sein, Ihre drahtlose Schnittstelle mit SSID usw. zu konfigurieren.

[Volker Schütt]

Hallo,

danke für den Tipp.

Aber leider kommt dann diese Meldung:

          │ There was an error running option S1 Wireless LAN        │

Gruß Volker

[Andrea Gatti]

hallo,
Ich habe diesen Fehler nur einmal gesehen, als ich (versehentlich) die Firmware meines Rpi-4B über den Befehl rpi-update aktualisiert habe.

Hast du zufällig auch die Firmware aktualisiert? Um dieses Problem zu beheben, musste ich die vorherige Firmware neu installieren. Leider weiß ich nichts anderes.

[Volker Schütt]

Hallo,

das passt. In meiner Verzweiflung habe ich gegoogelt und das kam als Tipp,

Wie bekomme ich das denn wieder rückgängig?

Gruß Volker

[Randy Reade]

Just be aware that the firmware is stored on the SD card so a different image/SD card will change the firmware.

Randy

[Volker Schütt]

Hallo,

das heißt, wenn ich das Image neu kopiere, wird die Firmware zurückgesetzt?

Gruß Volker

[Randy Reade]

That is correct.

Randy

On Wed, Oct 18, 2023, 2:06 a.m. Volker Schütt <schuett....@gmail.com> wrote:

Hallo,

das heißt, wenn ich das Image neu kopiere, wird die Firmware zurückgesetzt?

Gruß Volker

RandyR schrieb am Dienstag, 17. Oktober 2023 um 19:52:11 UTC+2:

Just be aware that the firmware is stored on the SD card so a different image/SD card will change the firmware.

Randy

On Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 12:02 p.m. Volker Schütt <schuett....@gmail.com> wrote:

Hallo,

das passt. In meiner Verzweiflung habe ich gegoogelt und das kam als Tipp,

Wie bekomme ich das denn wieder rückgängig?

Gruß Volker

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[Andrea Gatti]

LOL!

I didn't know that to roll back a firmware update, all that is needed is to re-boot with another (older) SD card.

To roll back mine, I issued a number of commands (in command-line mode and as root), sweating like hell...

Il giorno mercoledì 18 ottobre 2023 alle 14:24:16 UTC+2 RandyR ha scritto:

That is correct.

Randy

[Randy Reade]

😁

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[Marc Hamilton]

Andrea,

Technically, you don't need a second card. Use Win32Disk Imager to "read" your current card and create a backup image. If you need to recover do a "write" of the saved image. 

...and then there's this

[Volker Schütt]

Der Fehler bleibt auch mit einem "frischen" und älterem Image. V3.0 klappt, V3.2 weiterhin nicht.

[Dirk]

Hallo Volker,

hast Du den ersten Tipp den Tobias Dir gegeben hat mit dem Kopieren eines wpa_supplicant.conf Datei von Deinem Rechner auf die (Boot-Partition) Deiner SD Karte?

Das hat bei mir immer funktioniert. Such einfach hier im Forum nach wpa_supplicant.conf (dort ist dann genau beschrieben was in der Datei stehen muss).

Falls das mit Deiner SD Karte auch nicht funktioniert würde ich nochmal ein neues Image von Randy auf eine Karte flachen und dann dort die wpa_supplicant.conf Datei Raufkopieren. Das müsste dann auf jeden Fall klappen.

Gruß

Dirk

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[Volker Schütt]

Hallo Dirk,

3. WLAN-Konfiguration auf der Kommandozeile mit „wpa_supplicant“

Bei der Konfiguration von „wpa_supplicant“ wirft man sozusagen einen Blick in den Maschinenraum der WLAN-Konfiguration. Bis auf wenige Ausnahmen wird „wpa_supplicant“ immer für die WLAN-Konfiguration verantwortlich sein. Das Software-Paket „wpa_supplicant“ ist für das Erkennen von Funknetzen und den automatischen Verbindungsaufbau zuständig. Dazu müssen die Zugangsdaten in eine Konfigurationsdatei geschrieben werden. Diese Datei wird auch von den Netzwerk-Managern der Desktop-Oberfläche verwendet.

Öffnen und bearbeiten der Konfigurationsdatei:

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Hier müssen sich folgende Zeilen befinden oder ergänzt werden.

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=DE

Gefolgt von den einzelnen WLAN-Netzen:

network={
   ssid="WLAN-SSID"
   psk="WLAN-PASSWORT"
}

Anschließend speichern und schließen: Strg + O, Return, Strg + X.

Gruß Volker

[Volker Schütt]

Nun brat mir doch einer einen Storch...mit dem Kopieren der Datei klappt es, erstelle ich die Datei direkt auf der Karte via putty, klappt es nicht!!!

Nun ist alles gut und Danke.

Gruß Volker

[Dirk]

So war das bei mir auch mal mit rasp-config ging es nicht aber mit der "wpa_supplicant Methode“.

Klasse dass es jetzt geht!

Gruß

Dirk

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[Volker Schütt]

Hallo Dirk,

jetzt läuft endlich alles. Vor der Version sah ich aus wie Lenny Kravitz, jetzt wie Kozak. :-)

Viel wichtiger als meine Haarpracht ist, dass ihr das Projekt beatmet.

Danke und Gruß,

Volker

[Thomas]

Dear friends,

I am very grateful for PicoChess 3.2.

After setting it up and playing a few rounds, I want to change the favourites and wonder how and where to find the engines.ini and favourites.ini.

Could anyone help?

Kind regards and many thanks

Thomas

[Dirk]

Hi Thomas,

look in the main engine folder /opt/picochess/engines/armv7l for the files engines.ini, favorites.ini and retro.ini which you can edit.

Dirk

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[Volker Schütt]

Guten Morgen,

ist eigentlich in diesem Image auch die Unterstützung der anderen eBoards eingebaut worden?

Gruß Volker

[gkalab]

Hi Volker,

the Picochess source code includes the support for various e-boards. So the supported e-boards will always be available in the provided images.

Gerhard

[Volker Schütt]

Hi Gerhard,

thanks for the good information.

Greeting,

Volker