Prerequisites

Hardware requirements

Component	Minimum	Recommended
OS	Ubuntu 22.04	Ubuntu 24.04
GPU	NVIDIA GPU	NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell (24GB VRAM)
RAM	16GB	32GB
Storage	20GB free	20GB+ free

Software requirements

1. Ubuntu

Consult the Ubuntu installation tutorial for step-by-step instructions.

TIP

When asked if you'd like to install recommended proprietary software, ensure the "Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware" box is checked to install necessary NVIDIA drivers.

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2. NVIDIA drivers

INFO

NVIDIA Driver version 575 or higher is required for CUDA 12.9 compatability

1. Update your package index:

   sudo apt update

2. Install the recommended NVIDA drivers:

   sudo ubuntu-drivers install

3. Reboot your machine:

   sudo reboot

4. Verify installation:

   nvidia-smi

   This should return a summary of the installed NVIDIA GPUs, current driver version, and supported CUDA version.

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3. Docker

Follow the instructions for installing Docker using apt, including the instructions for managing Docker as a non-root user.

Once installed, verify both Docker and the Docker Compose plugin are available:

docker --version
docker compose version

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4. GPU support in Docker

1. Follow NVIDIA's instructions for installing nvidia-container-toolkit with apt.

2. Follow NVIDIA's instructions for configuring Docker.

3. You can verify GPU usage in Docker with the following command, which should return GPU performance benchmark results:

docker run --gpus all nvcr.io/nvidia/k8s/cuda-sample:nbody nbody -gpu -benchmark