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GPU Graphics Driver Set-Up

Tux02 has the Tesla K80 (GK210GL) GPU. For machine learning, we want the official proprietary NVIDIA drivers.

Installation

  • Debian 12 moved NVIDIA driver into the non-free-firmware repo. Add the following to "/etc/apt/sources.list" and run "sudo apt update":
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  • Make sure the correct kernel headers are installed:
sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
  • Install "nvidia-tesla-470-driver"⁰ (The NVIDIA line-up of programmable "Tesla" devices, used primarily for simulations and large-scale calculations, also require separate driver packages to function correctly compared to the consumer-grade GeForce GPUs that are instead targeted for desktop and gaming usage)¹:
sudo apt purge 'nvidia-*'
sudo apt install nvidia-tesla-470-driver
  • Black list nouveau since it conflicts with NVIDIA's driver, and regenerate the initramfs "sudo update-initramfs -u":
echo "blacklist nouveau" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf
echo "options nouveau modeset=0" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf
  • Reboot and test the nvidia drivers:
sudo reboot
nvidia-smi

# optional if you want to use nvidia-cuda-toolkit
sudo apt install nvidia-cuda-dev nvidia-cuda-toolkit

Issues

Holding on reboot until I check in with the rest of team regarding some initd raspi hook:

update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.1.0-9-amd64
raspi-firmware: missing /boot/firmware, did you forget to mount it?
run-parts: /etc/initramfs/post-update.d//z50-raspi-firmware exited with return code 1
dpkg: error processing package initramfs-tools (--configure):
 installed initramfs-tools package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0:amd64 (2.42.10+dfsg-1+deb12u1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 initramfs-tools

Removed the firmware by running:

sudo apt purge raspi-firmware

# Configure all packages that are installed but not yet fully configured
sudo dpkg --configure -a

# Update initramfs since we updated our drivers
sudo update-initramfs -u

References

(made with skribilo)