I downloaded the program, rgXnetchess_static.gz, so: gunzip rgXnetchess_static.gz ls -l rgXnetchess_static -rw-r--r-- 1 raffo users 687819 2002-12-15 22:24 rgXnetchess_static chmod u+x rgXnetchess_static ls -l rgXnetchess_static -rwxr--r-- 1 raffo users 687819 2002-12-15 22:24 rgXnetchess_static ldd rgXnetchess_static libX11.so.6 => /usr/i486-linux-libc5/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x40024000) libc.so.5 => /usr/i486-linux-libc5/lib/libc.so.5 (0x400c4000) If it were truly static, ldd would have given an error message. the program doesn't have all the libraries built in. From the output off ldd, your program requires the libc.so.5 library, a very old version of the C library. The compatiblity package that contains that version is called 'shlibs5'. If you don't have that library, the error message you get is something about file not found, or something like that, when you try to run that program. You get the same if you try wordperfect ver. 8, too. It's one of those uncomprehensible error messages in Unix. It runs fine after installing that library. -- Rafael