11

I love the install of 18.04 and I also work with blender3d a great deal. I need the CUDA toolkit in order to render with my GPU instead of my CPU.

I have read that it's critical that I get the right toolkit or could have some pretty bad issues. Just want to confirm that it is available for Ubuntu 18.04.

Also, where to get it and confirm its the right one?

Thank you

2 Answers 2

12

It looks as though the CUDA 9.1 is actually in the official 18.04 repositories now. Run the following from a terminal window:

sudo apt install nvidia-cuda-toolkit  

After it is installed run nvcc -V to confirm. You should see something similar to this:

terrance@terrance-ubuntu:~$ nvcc -V
nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver
Copyright (c) 2005-2017 NVIDIA Corporation
Built on Fri_Nov__3_21:07:56_CDT_2017
Cuda compilation tools, release 9.1, V9.1.85

The toolkit also installs the necessary drivers and support for OpenCL. Just install clinfo and run it to see:

sudo apt install clinfo

Then you should get something similar to the following:

terrance@terrance-ubuntu:~$ clinfo
Number of platforms                               1
  Platform Name                                   NVIDIA CUDA
  Platform Vendor                                 NVIDIA Corporation
  Platform Version                                OpenCL 1.2 CUDA 9.2.101
  Platform Profile                                FULL_PROFILE
  Platform Extensions                             cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_fp64 cl_khr_byte_addressable_store cl_khr_icd cl_khr_gl_sharing cl_nv_compiler_options cl_nv_device_attribute_query cl_nv_pragma_unroll cl_nv_copy_opts cl_nv_create_buffer
  Platform Extensions function suffix             NV

  Platform Name                                   NVIDIA CUDA
Number of devices                                 1
  Device Name                                     GeForce GTX 760
  Device Vendor                                   NVIDIA Corporation
  Device Vendor ID                                0x10de
  Device Version                                  OpenCL 1.2 CUDA
  Driver Version                                  396.24
  Device OpenCL C Version                         OpenCL C 1.2 
  Device Type                                     GPU
  Device Topology (NV)                            PCI-E, 02:00.0
  Device Profile                                  FULL_PROFILE
  Device Available                                Yes
  Compiler Available                              Yes
  Linker Available                                Yes
  Max compute units                               6
  Max clock frequency                             1032MHz
  Compute Capability (NV)                         3.0
  Device Partition                                (core)
    Max number of sub-devices                     1
    Supported partition types                     None
  Max work item dimensions                        3
  Max work item sizes                             1024x1024x64
  Max work group size                             1024
  Preferred work group size multiple              32
  Warp size (NV)                                  32
  Preferred / native vector sizes                 
    char                                                 1 / 1       
    short                                                1 / 1       
    int                                                  1 / 1       
    long                                                 1 / 1       
    half                                                 0 / 0        (n/a)
    float                                                1 / 1       
    double                                               1 / 1        (cl_khr_fp64)
  Half-precision Floating-point support           (n/a)
  Single-precision Floating-point support         (core)
    Denormals                                     Yes
    Infinity and NANs                             Yes
    Round to nearest                              Yes
    Round to zero                                 Yes
    Round to infinity                             Yes
    IEEE754-2008 fused multiply-add               Yes
    Support is emulated in software               No
    Correctly-rounded divide and sqrt operations  Yes
  Double-precision Floating-point support         (cl_khr_fp64)
    Denormals                                     Yes
    Infinity and NANs                             Yes
    Round to nearest                              Yes
    Round to zero                                 Yes
    Round to infinity                             Yes
    IEEE754-2008 fused multiply-add               Yes
    Support is emulated in software               No
  Address bits                                    64, Little-Endian
  Global memory size                              2095710208 (1.952GiB)
  Error Correction support                        No
  Max memory allocation                           523927552 (499.7MiB)
  Unified memory for Host and Device              No
  Integrated memory (NV)                          No
  Minimum alignment for any data type             128 bytes
  Alignment of base address                       4096 bits (512 bytes)
  Global Memory cache type                        Read/Write
  Global Memory cache size                        98304 (96KiB)
  Global Memory cache line size                   128 bytes
  Image support                                   Yes
    Max number of samplers per kernel             32
    Max size for 1D images from buffer            134217728 pixels
    Max 1D or 2D image array size                 2048 images
    Max 2D image size                             16384x16384 pixels
    Max 3D image size                             4096x4096x4096 pixels
    Max number of read image args                 256
    Max number of write image args                16
  Local memory type                               Local
  Local memory size                               49152 (48KiB)
  Registers per block (NV)                        65536
  Max number of constant args                     9
  Max constant buffer size                        65536 (64KiB)
  Max size of kernel argument                     4352 (4.25KiB)
  Queue properties                                
    Out-of-order execution                        Yes
    Profiling                                     Yes
  Prefer user sync for interop                    No
  Profiling timer resolution                      1000ns
  Execution capabilities                          
    Run OpenCL kernels                            Yes
    Run native kernels                            No
    Kernel execution timeout (NV)                 Yes
  Concurrent copy and kernel execution (NV)       Yes
    Number of async copy engines                  1
  printf() buffer size                            1048576 (1024KiB)
  Built-in kernels                                
  Device Extensions                               cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_fp64 cl_khr_byte_addressable_store cl_khr_icd cl_khr_gl_sharing cl_nv_compiler_options cl_nv_device_attribute_query cl_nv_pragma_unroll cl_nv_copy_opts cl_nv_create_buffer

NULL platform behavior
  clGetPlatformInfo(NULL, CL_PLATFORM_NAME, ...)  NVIDIA CUDA
  clGetDeviceIDs(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_ALL, ...)   Success [NV]
  clCreateContext(NULL, ...) [default]            Success [NV]
  clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_DEFAULT)  No platform
  clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_CPU)  No devices found in platform
  clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_GPU)  No platform
  clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_ACCELERATOR)  No devices found in platform
  clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_CUSTOM)  Invalid device type for platform
  clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_ALL)  No platform

ICD loader properties
  ICD loader Name                                 OpenCL ICD Loader
  ICD loader Vendor                               OCL Icd free software
  ICD loader Version                              2.2.11
  ICD loader Profile                              OpenCL 2.1

To install the NVIDIA graphics drivers in 18.04LTS, follow the steps below:

In a terminal window, type in:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

Then run the update:

sudo apt update

Then install the graphics driver:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-396

After a reboot, you can run nvidia-smi to see if it is installed:

terrance@terrance-ubuntu:~$ nvidia-smi
Wed May  2 22:38:14 2018       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 396.24                 Driver Version: 396.24                    |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 760     Off  | 00000000:02:00.0 N/A |                  N/A |
| 49%   51C    P0    N/A /  N/A |    262MiB /  1998MiB |     N/A      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID   Type   Process name                             Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0                    Not Supported                                       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Hope this helps!

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  • Still no luck on seeing the gpu in blender after installing the cuda toolkit - The toolkit for cuda did install though exactly the way you said it would above, and was able to confirm it via nvcc -V I am very new to ubuntu so I dont know if I am using my 1080ti graphic driver Is it possible that my machine is using a generic video driver? How do I find out that information and if it is using a generic driver then how do I install the latest 1080ti vid driver? thank you very much May 3, 2018 at 1:20
  • @greatfiction If you want to see what NVIDIA drivers are installed run nvidia-smi from a terminal window.
    – Terrance
    May 3, 2018 at 3:23
  • Thanks - I just did it and this was the result. Command 'nvidia-smi' not found, but can be installed with: sudo apt install nvidia-340 sudo apt install nvidia-utils-390 May 3, 2018 at 3:49
  • @greatfiction Actually, let me update my answer for you to install it from the graphics-drivers ppa
    – Terrance
    May 3, 2018 at 3:50
  • @greatfiction Edited my answer for installing the graphics driver.
    – Terrance
    May 3, 2018 at 3:52
1

I managed to install CUDA on my laptop but was stuck as you are until I ran into the gcc-6 issue. So, to summarize:

  1. Instal the nvidia proprietary driver;
  2. Install nvidia-settings, nvidia-prime, and nvidia-cuda-toolkit from the Ubuntu repository.
  3. Check that CUDA is installed in the terminal with the "nvcc --version" and/or "nvidia-smi" commands.
  4. Finally, if you can't see CUDA, you must make sure that you are using gcc-6 instead of gcc-7 or above. I found the solution in this thread and it works.

1) install gcc-6, g++-6 (CUDA requires gcc-6 !) 2) In /usr/bin as root, remove or rename gcc, gcc-ar, gcc-nm, gcc-ranlib, and g++ (if it exists), then ln -s gcc-6 gcc; ln -s gcc-ar-6 gcc-ar; ln -s gcc-nm-6 gcc-nm; ln -s gcc-ranlib-6 gcc-ranlib; and ln -s g++-6 g++

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