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QFCC Contest Image

This page covers the details of the image built for contestants.

Overview

Th contest image is based on Debian, and uses the Live Build tools to create a custom image.

Using the Image

  • Username: qfcc
  • Password: qfcc

Language Support

All submissions should be contained in a single file with the solution basename. The extension that should be used as well as how the solution will be run is in the following table:

Language Version Extension Compilation Invocation
C gcc 12.2.0 .c gcc solution.c ./a.out
C# dotnet 10.0.203 .cs dotnet build solution.cs ./bin/debug/solution
C++ g++ 12.2.0 .cc g++ solution.cc ./a.out
Go go 1.19.8 .go go build solution.go ./solution
Java OpenJDK 17.0.18 .java javac solution.java java solution
Javascript node v18.20.4 .js node solution.js
Perl GNU Perl v5.36.0 .pl perl solution.py
PHP PHP 8.2.30 (Zend) .php php solution.php
Python CPython 3.11.2 .py python3 solution.py
Ruby ruby (YARV) 3.1.2p20 .rb ruby solution.rb
Rust rustc 1.63.0 .rs rustc solution.rs ./solution

If you want to use a language not listed here, be sure to contact the contest hosts well before the contest. Most text-based languages with CLI support should be admissible.

Text Editors

The following text editors are present in the image:

  • Emacs
    • A very powerful text editor that can be run in a terminal or GUI window..
    • One of the two best text editors (debatable, but generally accepted to be one of the best).
  • Mousepad
    • A very simple graphical editor.
    • Similar to:
      • Gedit (Gnome)
      • Notepad (Windows)
      • TextEdit (Mac)
  • Nano
    • A bare bones terminal text editor.
  • Vim
    • A very powerful terminal text editor.
    • The best text editor (according to Eriq).
      • Along with Emacs, these editors had withstood the test of time and are generally considered the best.
    • Note that gvim is not available because of dependencies within the image.

Running Text Editors

This table summarizes some ways you can run each text editor.

Editor Has Desktop Icon Open Window Run in Terminal
Emacs ✅ emacs emacs -nw
Mousepad ✅ mousepad
Nano nano
Vim vim

Building the Image

We use Live Build to build our image, which requires a Debian install. To make it easy for anyone to build, we use Docker to create a Debian container which can then build our contest image.

Note that we need to use the repository root as the Docker build context, since we need to copy files outside of this directory. To build the image builder image:

$(cd .. && docker build -t qfcc-image-builder -f contest-image/Dockerfile .)

To build the actual image/ISO:

docker run --rm --privileged -v ./build:/out qfcc-image-builder

Note that the seed will be output during this step, which is used as the root password. In the build output, you will see something like:

Seed: 400011907

Testing the Image

The most straightforward way to test the image would be to burn it to a USB and run it. To test it without needing a USB or another machine, you can use QEMU:

qemu-system-x86_64 --enable-kvm -cpu host -boot d -m 8G -cdrom ./build/build.amd64.iso

Writing the Image

All existing data on this USB stick will be lost.

First plug in your USB stick (or whatever block device you want to write to). Identify which block device your USB has been assigned, we will use /dev/sdX in this document. We want to disk, not partition, so the block device will generally end in a letter, not number.

This document does not cover the details of identifying your block device, but here is a general procedure you can use:

  1. Unplug the USB (if plugged in).
  2. Run lsblk -o NAME,TRAN.
  3. Plug in the USB and wait five seconds.
  4. Run lsblk -o NAME,TRAN.
  5. Look at the difference between the two.

To copy the image (at ./build/build.amd64.iso) to the USB (at /dev/sdX), use:

sudo dd if=./build/build.amd64.iso of=/dev/sdX conv=fsync bs=4M status=progress

Packages

The packages the image uses live in the packages directory. Note that .list files may contain versions, while .txt files can only contain names.