This page describes how to create a hard disk containing the current ICPC World Finals contest image. The contest image consists of the Fedora Core 6 (FC6) Linux operating system and its tools and utilities, together with contest-specific tools such as the Eclipse development environment and the PC2 Programming Contest Control system.
Creating a contest image on disk involves four basic steps: downloading a boot image file; burning the boot image onto CD; booting a machine from the bootable CD; and using the boot image to download and install the complete contest image on the hard drive of that machine. Note that the machine onto which you are installing the contest image must be connected to the Internet and have network access to a DHCP server in order to download and install the image.
During the installation process you will be given the opportunity to specify basic configuration information such as which partitions on the hard disk to use (or not use) and to specify the root password. Once the complete contest image has been installed on the disk, the installation procedure will automatically reboot the machine and start FC6; you will then be able to log using the account name "team999" and password "contest". This will put you at the FC6 Linux desktop configured exactly as it will be for the World Finals.
NOTE: You will also be able to login to your machine as root (using the password you created during the installation process). However, you will NOT have access to the root account/password during the World Finals; we do not recommend using root to change anything in your machine configuration, as this will cause it to be different from what will be available at the World Finals.
linux boot ks=http://pc2.ecs.baylor.edu/kickstart/icpc2008.cfg
This should display a message indicating the machine is contacting the DHCP server to obtain an IP address, followed by the message "Retrieving images/stage2.img" which indicates the start of the download of the contest image. The contest image is quite large and the download could take considerable time depending on the speed of your network connection; be patient.
Note: if you see the message "Choose A Language" instead of "Retrieving images/stage2.img" after starting the download, the most likely reason is that the network card in your machine is not compatible with the Fedora Core 6 boot image. If this happens please send email to pc2@ecs.csus.edu for information on possible workarounds for this issue.
Once the image is downloaded the system will prompt with a series of screens allowing you to specify the optional details of the installation. Select the appropriate entry on each screen and then click the "Next" button to advance to the next screen. The option screens are as follows:
Disk Partitioning Setup
The system will issue a warning asking you to make sure you have selected the correct options; confirm what you have selected and click "Yes". Be sure you have checked the "Review and Modify Partitioning Layout" box!
Disk Setup
By default Fedora Core 6 uses "LVM Volume Groups" as part of the file system structure. However, the machines for the contest will not be using LVM. To alter the disk setup for contest compatibility, it is necessary to insure that there exist three hard disk partitions:
The "Disk Setup" screen shows the current disk partitioning of your system. If it already complies with the above requirements, click "Next" to continue. Otherwise, it is necessary to reconfigure the partitioning. The manner in which this is done depends on your current setup.
If your current setup includes LVM VolumeGroups but no free space to build the required partitions, you can click on one of the VolumeGroups and hit "Delete" to remove the group. You can then click on one of the partitions marked as being in the group, and hit "Delete" to return the partitiion to free space. WARNING: this will PERMANENTLY DELETE any information in these partitions; be SURE you want to do this before continuing!
Once you have sufficient free space, you can select the free space partition, hit "Edit" to edit the space, and build the required swap partition and/or the required ext3 partition with "/" as the mount point.
Once you have the required partitions, click "Next" to continue.
You will then be asked to enter and confirm the desired root password for your system.
Once you have completed the above steps the installation procedure will download the complete set of FC6 packages comprising the contest image (which again may require considerable time depending on your network connection), build the contest image on the hard drive, and then reboot the machine and start the FC6 operating system. The team machine configuration created by the above process will contain all the utilities, libraries, compilers, applications, integrated development environments, and other tools and documentation which will be provided on the actual team machines at the World Finals. At that point you can log in as "team999" (password "contest") and use the machine, which will be configured equivalently to the Team machines which will be provided at the World Finals.
Views since 5 Feb 2008
Revised: Tue Feb 5 19:09:42 PST 2008