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Tutorial - Ubuntu Server Setup

May 15, 20242 min read

1. Download and Install from USB Stick

  1. Download Ubuntu-server image.
  2. Burn the image to a USB stick at least 8GB space via tools like unetbootin, Raspberry Pi Imager, or Balenea Etcher
  3. Boot your computer with the USB.
  4. Install with default UI instructions. Just enable the SSH option to connect remotely.
  5. After the installation done, the hard disk space might be showed lower. Run the following commands to fix;
lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/ubuntu-vg/ubuntu-lv
resize2fs /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv

2. Install NVIDIA drivers

If you have external GPU card installed on your machine, you can install relevant driver packs bundled with Ubuntu.

  1. Check the available drivers packed with Ubuntu-server ubuntu-drivers devices
  2. Before installing the driver, you can check whether any GPU driver is installed or not. nvidia-smi
  3. You can search drivers to install via apt search nvidia-driver or apt-cache search nvidia-driver.
  4. If you are OK with the Ubuntu-server defaults you can use sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall command. If you want to install a specific driver you can use sudo apt install nvidia-driver-xxx. Replace the xxx with appropriate driver version number listed in the step 3.
# List available drivers
sudo ubuntu-drivers list --gpgpu
 
sudo ubuntu-drivers install --gpgpu nvidia:535-server

reference

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

If you get this message when you run nvidia-smi It is recommended that to install CUD drivers.

# Check cuda
nvcc --version
 
# If the above command outputs;
# Command 'nvcc' not found, but can be installed with:
sudo apt install nvidia-cuda-toolkit
 
sudo ubuntu-drivers devices | grep recommended
sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall
 
# Required for docker containers to run properly
sudo apt-get install -y nvidia-container-runtime
 
# Check permissions of the runtime
ls -l /usr/bin/nvidia-container-runtime
# -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3911656 Apr 15 16:38 **/usr/bin/nvidia-container-runtime**

2.1. Uninstall NVIDIA drivers

# List all drivers on the system
dpkg -l | grep -i nvidia
 
# Remove everything related to NVIDIA
sudo apt-get remove --purge '^nvidia-.*'
sudo apt-get remove --purge '^libnvidia-.*'
sudo apt-get remove --purge '^cuda-.*'

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