If I do the first step with horse, the game crashes.

I also get a crash directly after the second move. I haven't moved my Horse yet.

In retrospect, its the computer AI which i'm playing against that is moving its horse just before the crash. If I move my horse, just like Major Andras the game crashes every time.

It seems unplayable like this. I can't get passed two moves.

As a (hopefully tempory) workaround, search and install dreamChess. (very similar)
http://www.getdeb.net/search.php?keywords=dreamchess

Also glChess is nice (integrates nicely with gnome).
Last option is apt-get install brutalchess. Although its have little to no features, it looks nice and is playable.

I can report this too. It's been the third move of the game, I move my horse, then the computer tries a move and crash!

Hopefully there will be a solution.

me too

Same problem. Game crashes (window disappears completely) at 2nd move.

Should probably mention that I have an Nvidia graphics card, GeForce 5???, since this appears to be some sort of video glitch. Typically crashes my display after 2-5 moves.

It seems to be related to optimizations: with some CFLAGS it immediately segfaults. I tried multiple combinations, and I found one that don't segfault anymore (I was able to play a whole game without problem).

Hmm, this issue is still here (segfaults are still occurring).

This bug has also be reported upstream: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1596684&group_id=157043&atid=802212

New debdiff, with a little patch from upstream svn. pouetChess developer confirmed me that it should fix this issue (it works for me).

It only needs a member of ubuntu-dev or ubuntu-core-dev to review and acknowledge it (I am following this procedure: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Processes/SRU).

diff -u pouetchess-0.2.0/debian/changelog pouetchess-0.2.0/debian/changelog
--- pouetchess-0.2.0/debian/changelog
+++ pouetchess-0.2.0/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+pouetchess (0.2.0-0ubuntu2~prop1) edgy-proposed; urgency=low
+
+ * debian/patches/04-segfaults_fix.patch: patch from upstream svn to fix
+ segfaults when playing against AI. (Closes Ubuntu #63309)
+
+ -- Lionel Le Folgoc (mr_pouit) <email address hidden> Thu, 16 Nov 2006 14:18:06 +0100
+
 pouetchess (0.2.0-0ubuntu1) edgy; urgency=low

   * Initial release.
only in patch2:
unchanged:
--- pouetchess-0.2.0.orig/debian/patches/04-segfaults_fix.patch
+++ pouetchess-0.2.0/debian/patches/04-segfaults_fix.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+--- src/faile/utils.c.orig 2006-05-28 00:32:00.000000000 +0200
++++ src/faile/utils.c 2006-11-15 23:31:39.000000000 +0100
+@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@
+ rank (target) < 1 || rank (target) > 8 ||
+ file (target) < 1 || file (target) > 8)
+ {
+- sprintf (str, "*** FAILE INTERNAL ERROR ***");
++ sprintf (str, "xxxx");
+ return;
+ }
+

the patch doesn't look complete. on the referenced sourceforge page, this patch looks like it could fix things: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/download.php?group_id=157043&atid=802212&file_id=203026&aid=1596684

*** Marked Bug #77573 as a duplicate of this. ***

There are already patches available. The game is completely unplayable. You would have expected one of these things to occur:

 - the patch would be accepted and the game would be updated
 - the package would be removed since it doesn't work for anyone

None of these things has happened. Why?

PS. This is not meant to sound like a flame towards the package-maintainer: he did all he could. But he needed permission to update the package, yet never got it.

In the mean time, new people are trying out this game everyday. It crashes, they might even loose some work. (its not changing back its resolution after the segfault, so some people will just 'reset' if they don't know how to deal with this).

My suggestions:
 - the package maintainers should get more initial freedom
 - a package known to be completely broken should be immediately removed from the repo's

Hi,

The fix is already in feisty, and a proposed fix for edgy (pouetchess 0.2.0-0ubuntu1.1) is available in edgy-proposed. It will be moved to edgy-updates as soon as enough people have tested it and reported to Bug 72052 that this worked for them.

So people willing to help can enable/add edgy-proposed [1] in their /etc/apt/sources.list, install pouetchess 0.2.0-0ubuntu1.1 and report into Bug 72052 that it worked for them. ;)

Thanks.

[1] The line in /etc/apt/sources.list would look like this:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-proposed main restricted universe multiverse

Feisty's versions is fixed, I assume Edgy as well?

No, for edgy, a proposed fix is in edgy-proposed, but it needs testing before going into edgy-updates.

I tried the edgy-proposed 0.2.0 and the same thing happens. Sometimes after two moves, sometimes three or four. But in the end the same thing, the program dies. And that means this fix didn't work.

I tried too the edgy-proposed 0.2.0 and it just works nicely for me. Before, it was just unplayable. After, it is just perfect.
It seems it needs more trials.
I do not know if it could help to know that, but in my case, I am using a Nvidia FX5200 video card and the 9746 Nvidia driver installed by using envy, all that of course under edgy. For information, pouetChess is also running well under Beryl using the patch, which is just nice.
And that means this fix just work nicely... at least in my case.

Version 0.2.0-0ubuntu1.2, which should fix this issue, is available in edgy-updates.