Welcome to the GNU Backgammon web site
Welcome to the GNU Backgammon web site. This site will help you
download and install GNU Backgammon, and give you tips on how to use
GNU Backgammon to improve your game. GNU Backgammon is a world class
backgammon application, and it works on many operating systems. It can
play, analyse and teach backgammon. Its evaluation engine is based on
artificial neural networks. Read more in the about
section.
GNU Backgammon is free software and released under the
GNU General Public License (GPL).
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News
New OS/X Installations Available
There are new packages available for Mac OS/X (20110822 Snapshot)
Mountain Lion Users (10.8.x):
Download the DMG file, and read the README1ST file for information on
installing X11 on this platform. GNUBG will fail to run if X11 is not properly
installed first.
Please read the README1ST file for installation requirements (X11), trouble shooting and miscellaneous help. If you experience random crashes in 3D mode on OS/X Lion 10.7, please see the README1ST file for a possible work around.
GNUBG must be installed to the /Applications folder.
If you need support for OS/X please contact Michael Petch at mpetch@capp-sysware.com
Building gnubg from source on Ubuntu
Here are some simple instructions to build gnubg straight from source on linux. The example is using Ubuntu 8.10, but the steps should be similar for any type of linux.
[Read more]
MS Windows distributions and exes
Two versions of GnuBG are currently available:
- current MAIN (CVS tag MAIN, current version 0.90): most recent source code (snapshot 20121023)
- Installation program (win threads, sse2)
- The installer will automatically detect if your CPU supports SSE2 and install the appropriate executables.To see if SSE2 exes have been installed, use the "Help/About gnubg" menu, "Build info" button: if "SSE.SSE2 supported" should be listed amongst the features, if your CPU supports it. To manuallly check if your PC supports SSE2, you can download and unzip this archve (TestSSE2) in any directory, then run the executable.
- Executables only archives:
- If your PC does not support SSE2 instruction set, use these:
- the old 0.15-stable (CVS tag rel_0_15): stable, but outdated. Use only in case of troubles with the most recent version.
Sources are available here.
Please reinstall fully if you have an installation older than 20121023, otherwise you can just download the exes and put them in the installation directory (you may want to rename them once unzipped).
Note: in case of problems with older MS Windows versions (i.e. 98, ME), you can try this older gnubg installation archive.
[Read more]
Getting the source code of GNU Backgammon
There are two ways to get the source code:
- Download a source (CVS) snapshots, click here
- Connect directly to the CVS repository (cvs.savannah.gnu.org:/sources/gnubg), click here
GNU/Linux packages
There are binary builds of GNU Backgammon for GNU/Linux available, both as RPM packages for SuSE and RedHat. Debian GNU/Linux packages will follow shortly.
All packages are signed by Achim Müller. You can find the PGP public key either
here or at any keyserver.
The packages are built with 3d-support. They are also optimized for i686 computers with sse support:
Gnubg rpms for OpenSuSE-10.1
Gnubg rpms for RedHat Advanced Server 4
[Read more]
GNU Backgammon for MacOS X
GNU Backgammon (or
gnubg for short) is a Free Software Backgammon playing program, licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL).
GNU Backgammon for MacOS X is a full
binary version of
gnubg, built for MacOS X, and available for download from this website.

This picture illustrates two new features: 3D boards and international support (here, French)
[Read more]
Downloading and installing GNU Backgammon
You can get GNU Backgammon precompiled binaries for several systems. Or you can get the source code from the CVS or from a tarball.
[Read more]