How to Install and Use CUDA on Debian 11

We are going to teach you How to Install and Use CUDA on Debian 11. CUDA is a parallel computing platform and programming model developed by NVIDIA. CUDA enables developers to use the power of GPUs to implement parallel programming and process complex and massive calculations much faster.

Prerequisites

1. A Linux VPS Server with Debian 11 OS

2. Please install the GPGPU computing platform for CUDA, which is provided by NVIDIA.

3. NVIDIA graphics card from CUDA-Enabled

How to Install NVIDIA Graphics Driver

If your computer has an NVIDIA graphics card, install the NVIDIA Graphic Driver to improve graphics performance.

After installation, restart the computer to load the default general driver into the new NVIDIA driver.

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Then, you should add [non-free] to the main line. Also if contrib is not set, add it, too as the following commands:

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free

If your card is before the GeForce 600 series or similar products, install [nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver] using the following command:

apt update

apt -y install nvidia-driver firmware-misc-nonfree

Disable the default nouveau driver using the following command:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-blacklists-nouveau.conf

update-initramfs -u

Finally, you can reboot the system using the following command:

reboot

Please confirm the installation to view the status of the graphics card. Using the following command:

nvidia-smi

How to Install CUDA on Debian 11

Before starting How to Install CUDA on Debian 11, it is necessary to install NVIDIA Graphics Driver by running the following command. Therefore, it is necessary to perform the following steps in order.

By default, you add the words [contrib non-free] to the following command in the APT source, as in the previous step:

apt -y install nvidia-cuda-toolkit nvidia-cuda-dev

nvcc --version

In the next step, you should verify the installation with a common user to run a sample program using the following command:

git clone https://github.com/zchee/cuda-sample.git

cd ./cuda-sample/1_Utilities/deviceQuery

/cuda-sample/1_Utilities/deviceQuery$ vi Makefile

Now you should change line 37 as follows:

CUDA_PATH?=/usr

You should also change line 192 as follows:

SMS ?= 70

Compile the device query sample using the following command:

/cuda-sample/1_Utilities/deviceQuery$ make

Run the deviceQuery sample using the following command:

/cuda-sample/1_Utilities/deviceQuery$ ./deviceQuery

It should be noted that you should try to run a bandwidth test sample using the following command:

cd ~/cuda-sample/1_Utilities/bandwidthTest

/cuda-sample/1_Utilities/bandwidthTest$ vi Makefile

Again you need to change line 37 as follows:

CUDA_PATH?=/usr

change line 192 as follows:

SMS ?= 70

/cuda-sample/1_Utilities/bandwidthTest$ make
/cuda-sample/1_Utilities/bandwidthTest$ ./bandwidthTest

Conclusion

By following the steps outlined in this article, you can easily install and use CUDA on Debian 11 to accelerate your high-performance computing tasks. Leveraging the power of your NVIDIA GPU for general-purpose processing tasks can significantly improve the performance of your applications and allow you to tackle computationally intensive workloads with ease. So, go ahead and harness the power of CUDA on Debian 11 for faster and more efficient computing. If you are also using the Ubuntu operating system, we recommend that you read the article The Ultimate Guide to Installing CUDA on Ubuntu 22.04.