I’m trying to switch from windows to linux in my development… I download an ubuntu ISO to install it as a secondary OS on my PC, but I was a bit disappointed to found that current ubuntu 8.04 is not supported by NVIDIA. At least I found no driver for this platform at NVIDIA website. External Image
So, some questions then:
Is is possible to install CUDA driver/SDK/toolkit for ubuntu 7.04/7.10 on ubuntu 8.04?
Did someone succeed in this?
Will ubuntu 8.04 be ever supported by NVIDIA and when?
I’ve done this, but I can’t guarantee correctness. Re. support: If you suspect you have a bug in the driver or toolkit, you’ll have to reproduce it on a supported distro before NVIDIA can take it seriously, until official support comes. That said, I’ve been fine.
Thanks! I’ll try… External Media One more question: which kind of ubuntu did you play with? X-, K-, Gnome-based one? Is it makes any difference for CUDA stuff (especially driver)?
Standard Gnome Ubuntu - I think it’s pretty similar all around. You may get better speeds with lighter window managers, but the most speed of all if you aren’t running X11 on the GPU.
We’re currently targeting CUDA_2.1 for the end of this year (beta releases may be available somewhat sooner).
@stickguy, please note that qualifying a new Linux distribution is a time intensive process, and isn’t simply a matter of just running the SDK apps on the distribution once and calling it good enough. As such, the distribution needs to be in its final, released form for the entire CUDA release development cycle to ensure that it works well. In other words, if a distribution hasn’t been released by the time of the previous (CUDA_2.0 for example) CUDA release, its unlikely that it will be qualified for the next CUDA release. Thus, Ubuntu 8.10 will definitely not be qualified for the CUDA_2.1 release (nor will Fedora 10, etc).
Keep up the good work! You guys are doing a great job supporting so many different versions of multiple distributions in a very timely fashion.
Are there any plans to better integrate CUDA with Ubuntu’s package management? Perhaps you guys could collaborate on this with the people behind EnvyNG (i.e. Alberto)? For those of us developing CUDA-based applications, it would be great if we could rely on the CUDA driver, toolkit, and SDK being installed in a standard way.
People wanting to run a CUDA program do not need the toolkit and SDK. You can ship the toolkit (in .so format e.g.) with your application if needed (and I believe this is preferred so there are no version incompatibilities). It is only the driver that is needed (and which you are not allowed to ship with your application as far as NVIDIA has stated here on the forums). And usually the packages for new drivers follow quite soon I believe (but that is really a distro’s responsibility as far as I see it)
As long as the CUDA enabled drivers are marked as beta, distributions will not dare to put them in their repositories. So for the time being, CUDA is out of mainstream.
You realize that’s the display driver, and not the CUDA driver? Additionally, many distros DO have support for beta/cutting edge stuff (gentoo for example), but I haven’t seen CUDA itself in any distros.
