The Picochess chess program already has an extended and storied historical past behind it—one thing you have to be conscious of for those who’re seeking to obtain and use it to play chess with on Raspberry Pi.
After years of improvement, model 1.0 was launched in 2019, however solely provided minor enhancements in comparison with 0.9N. This was adopted by model 2.01 in the beginning of 2020 and 3.0 in direction of the tip of the 12 months. Version 3.3 has been obtainable since May 2024.
You can obtain these newer variations at github.com/tosca07/picochess. However, that is solely Picochess. To be capable of use the instrument, it’s essential to first arrange the Raspberry Pi OS working system. The prototype of the upcoming version 4 of Picochess has additionally been obtainable with out Raspberry Pi OS since May 2025.
Anyone on the lookout for ready-made pictures with Raspberry Pi OS and Picochess on the net will nearly inevitably find yourself on github.com/jromang/picochess. However, the final change there was greater than six years in the past—so it’s not beneficial.
Not a lot is going on elsewhere both: for instance, the “DGT Pi Chess Computer” with built-in Raspberry Pi comes with the traditional Picochess model 0.9L. On the DGT web site there’s solely a reference to a YouTube video explaining the right way to replace to a more moderen model. A poor service.
However, if you must do it your self, there are higher methods. Instead of paying round $400 for the DGT Pi Chess Computer, you should utilize a Raspberry Pi and a DGT-3000 chess clock for round $100.
Or you possibly can construct your personal chess pc by giving the Raspberry a touchscreen. It’s additionally potential to play with the Raspberry on a pill as Picochess has an built-in internet server.
Enter the IP deal with that your router has assigned to the Raspberry. If a touchscreen is related on to the desktop model, the deal with is 127.0.0.1.
Picochess 3.3 Desktop and Lite
As of September 2025, there are two 3.4 variations of Picochess—a desktop and a lite model. The desktop model is, so far as Picochess is anxious, the identical, however in contrast to the Lite model, it has a desktop setting and a few additional software program.
Picochess desktop: Apart from the graphical person interface and some different applications, there are hardly any variations to the Lite model. The Lite model is due to this fact excellent for Raspberry Pis with out their very own show.
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The Lite model is good for older Raspberry Pis, such because the 3 sequence fashions. Both pictures could be downloaded from the Picochess Google group, every on the present Bookworm model of Raspberry Pi OS.
The picture of the Lite model is 5.7GB in dimension (unpacked 10.5GB), that of the desktop model 7.1GB (unpacked 16 GB). You ought to use at the least a 32GB micro SD card for the desktop model, as in any other case no additional updates are potential.
You must also create a bigger swap file on a Raspberry with much less most important reminiscence.
Writing the picture to the SD card
There are a number of methods to jot down the picture to the micro SD card. First set up the Raspberry Pi Imager (underneath Ubuntu) with
sudo apt set up rpi-imagerThen open Raspberry Pi Imager. Select the Raspberry mannequin and the entry Use customized because the working system on the backside. Then choose the beforehand downloaded and unzipped picture file, adopted by your SD card and Next.
RPI imager: The picture is chosen right here, which is then written to the SD card. At the underside of the record is the entry “Use custom”. This means that you can choose a ready-made picture that already accommodates the chess program.
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In the following step, edit the settings. On the “Services” tab, swap off Enable SSH. Under “General”, uncheck Hostname and Set username and password.
Then arrange the Wi-Fi (“Configure Wifi” with SSID, password and Wi-Fi nation) and specify the language settings. Save the settings after which choose Yes within the subsequent dialogue window and the one after that. Under Ubuntu, it’s essential to then enter the basis password to begin the write course of.
You can then begin the Raspberry Pi with this picture. After booting, the partitions are enlarged to cowl all the SD card. If you have got arrange WLAN, you’ll have to wait slightly longer as a consequence of a compatibility drawback. The system will shut down once more and also you’ll must unplug the ability twine briefly to restart.
The Raspberry Pi restarts a number of occasions. Finally, the desktop picture seems (or a immediate within the Lite model). The person identify is “pi” and the password is “picochess”.
Marginal: The internet server of the desktop model seems to be slightly totally different from that of model 3.3, however the distinction is negligible.
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Changes within the “picochess.ini”
At the immediate—within the desktop model in a terminal—change to the “/opt/picochess” listing. There, edit the file with
nano picochess.iniThe content material may be very properly defined and also you solely have to alter a couple of issues. Set the usual taking part in time beneath the “Time selection” line. Change the road “board-type = dgt” to
board-type = noeboardif you wish to play in opposition to the engine through the net server. There are additionally many different choices. For instance, you possibly can ship your self video games by e-mail or have Picochess routinely verify for updates. Just take a look on the “picochess.ini” file.
Menu navigation: Use the arrow keys in addition to ” ” and “-” to navigate shortly or slowly by the Picochess menu.
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Other engines
The picture accommodates field64 and Wine to have the ability to use x86 Linux and Windows chess engines. This requires a 4k pagesize kernel on a Raspberry Pi 5. If you don’t have a Pi 5, you possibly can take away the entry “kernel=kernel8.img” with
sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt(“#kernel=kernel8.img”) after which reboot the pc with
sudo rebootThere are two folders underneath “/opt/picochess/engines/ aarch64”: “linux64” and “windows64”. One folder is for x86_64-bit Linux techniques, the opposite for Windows chess engines, which don’t run as reliably.
The freely obtainable variations of Komodo Dragon, Komodo 14.1, and Stockfish run on each Windows and Linux. You should first obtain the Komodo engines from the homepage and add them to the suitable folder.
Set the information to executable and modify the required entries within the “favorites.ini” within the aarch64 folder. There are ini examples within the corresponding directories.