NetBSD/ACM Bootable CD


Notes on the CD image

This page contains information about the NetBSD-based CD image to be used for the NY Regional ACM Programming contest. Instructions on how to create the CD image are available here.

The client CDs will communicate with a local PC2 server. Sample instructions on how to set up a NetBSD server for this purpose are available here.


Notes on downloading the image

A CD image suitable for teams to test the setup is available here.
The MD5 checksum for the iso image is available here (signed with my pgp key).
This CD has two accounts (as described below) and runs a local PC2 server.

The CD that will be used in the actual contest is available here.
The MD5 checksum for the iso image is available here (signed with my pgp key).
This CD requests an IP from the local DHCP server, attempts to ypbind and then mount the home directories from the local PC2 server.


Notes on using the image

The CD boots directly into multi-user mode; it will try to boot into X mode, using the configuration most commonly found at Stevens. If that fails, it will remain in console mode. Since XFree86 is installed, and a number of configuration files are located in /etc/X11, you could start X by hand.

The default XF86Config file uses the NVidia driver. If your machine does not use an NVidia graphics card, then you can try to either symlink /etc/X11/XF86Config to any of the other existing xonfig files, or you could run xf86config or xf86cfg by hand (as root). Restart the xdm login manager by ossuing /etc/rc.d/xdm restart.

During the boot process, the OS from the contest CD runs dhclient to obtain a dynamic IP address. It will then start ypbind to allow for NIS support from the pc2 server. The default domain is acm, the default server 'pc2', which is defined to be 172.16.0.1. Finally, it will try to mount /home from pc2 via NFS.

The test CD has two local users: root and user; the password for both is their respective username. (Obviously, this does not apply for the CDs used during the actual contest.)

If you log in as user, then the default window manager (fvwm2) will be started. In one of the windows, a local PC2 server will be started as well as the PC2 client. You will also find ``Hello World'' examples in each of the contests languages (C, C++, Java and Ada) in the users home directory, which you can use to test and familiarize yourself with the PC2 software.

Any application (including the X server or even the login shell) is loaded from the CD. This means that the first time any application is accessed it may take a moment to load -- subsequent invocations of the same command should then be significantly faster. We are still investigating if it would be faster to load applications over the net from the NFS server.


Software installed on the CD

In addition to the regular NetBSD Operating System, which includes the GNU Compiler Collection (ie gcc and g++) version 3.3.3 and the GNU gdb debugger version 5.3, the following extra packages are installed:

eieio-0.17          Enhanced Integration of Emacs Interpreted Objects
elib-1.0nb2         Library of utility functions for Emacs
emacs-21.3nb4       GNU editing macros (editor)
fvwm2-2.4.18        Newer version of X11 Virtual window manager
gccAda-3.4.0        This is the gcc 3.4 Ada compiler
jde-2.3.2           Full-featured Java editing mode for emacs
jpeg-6bnb1          IJG's jpeg compression utilities
libungif-4.1.0.1    Tools and library routines for working with GIF images
nedit-5.4nb1        Motif based standard GUI style text editor
openmotif-2.1.30nb2 The Open Group Motif toolkit for the X Window System
opera-7.54          Small, fast and customizable WWW client
png-1.2.5nb5        Library for manipulating PNG images
readline-4.3pl5     GNU library that can recall and edit previous input
semantic-1.4.2      Lexer, parser-generator, and parser written for Emacs
speedbar-0.14rc4    Directory and code browser for emacs
sun-jdk14-2.5       Sun's Java(tm) 2 SDK, Standard Edition 1.4.2
sun-jre14-2.5       Sun's Java(tm) 2 Runtime Environment 1.4.2
suse_base-7.3nb5    Linux compatibility package
suse_compat-7.3     Linux compatibility package with old shared libraries
suse_x11-7.3nb2     Linux compatibility package for X11 binaries
tiff-3.6.1nb2       Library and tools for reading and writing TIFF data files
vim-6.3.0           Vim editor (vi clone) without GUI
vim-share-6.3.0     Data files for the vim editor (vi clone)
xpkgwedge-1.10      Allows X11 pkgs to be built and used outside of ${X11BASE}
xpmroot-2.4.18      Sets the root window to an Xpm pixmap

In addition, the pc2 software is also installed, configured for a local server suitable for testing purposes. You can find it in /usr/local/pc2.


Questions and comments: email Jan Schaumann
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