Basic Machine Learning Setup (Ubuntu 16.04)

This is a short overview of my basic ML Ubuntu 16.04 setup. It includes NVIDIA Drivers, CUDA, OpenCV as well as a basic Python virtual environment setup. For this setup I expect a PC with a (current) NVIDIA GPU and Ubuntu 16.04 installed. I use standard paths, if necessary these must be adapted according to your installation.

First of all update your system to the latest version as follows:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

GPU Acceleration

Install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers as well as CUDA and CUDNN to get GPU acceleration.

NVIDIA Drivers

We install the NVIDIA drivers by using an PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nvidia-396

You may install a newer version than 396, all available versions are displayed when you type nvidia- followed by <tab>.

After the installation is finished, restart the PC.

CUDA

Download the Installer as well as the patches from CUDA 9.0 Download.

Install the files via the following command (change file name for the two patches). When the installation procedure comes up a few questions will be asked about what to install where. It is important to NOT install the driver, only CUDA (optionally the CUDA examples). The default path /usr/local/cuda-9.0 is fine. Also let it create a symbolic link at /usr/local/cuda.

sudo sh cuda_9.0.176_384.81_linux-run

Add the following to your bashrc (~/.bashrc, .zshrc when zsh is used):

# Path
export PATH="/usr/local/cuda/bin:$PATH"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/cuda/lib64:/usr/local/cuda/extras/CUPTI/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
export LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/cuda/lib64:/usr/local/cuda/extras/CUPTI/lib64:$LIBRARY_PATH"

CUDNN

Download CUDNN 7.1 for CUDA 9.0. Extract the content, this will create a cuda directory, e.g. in ~/Downloads/cuda. After extracting copy the content to the CUDA folder, as follows:

sudo rsync -rl cuda/ /usr/local/cuda

Optional step for multiple CUDNN versions

If you would like to install multiple versions of CUDNN you could just create a subfolder and add the lib64 files there and later on set the (LD_)LIBRARY_PATH accordingly to which version you need. For example:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/cuda-9.0/cudnn
sudo cp -R cuda/lib64 /usr/local/cuda-9.0/cudnn/7.1

After doing so, an alias can be added to the _.bashrc_, which adds the required cudnn versions directory to the front of *(LD_)LIBRARY_PATH*.

Python Virtualenv

Install some prerequisites:

sudo apt install python-dev python3-dev python-pip virtualenv
sudo pip install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper

Add the following to your bashrc (~/.bashrc):

# virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper
export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

Close your terminal and reopen it (or just source ~/.bashrc).

OpenCV

A good tutorial to install OpenCV from source can be found here.

Here is the content of the tutorial in short for a installation with Python 3.5:

sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake pkg-config libjpeg8-dev libtiff5-dev libjasper-dev libpng12-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev libv4l-dev libxvidcore-dev libx264-dev libgtk-3-dev libatlas-base-dev gfortran
mkdir ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp
wget -O opencv.zip https://github.com/Itseez/opencv/archive/3.4.1.zip
unzip opencv.zip
wget -O opencv_contrib.zip https://github.com/Itseez/opencv_contrib/archive/3.4.1.zip
unzip opencv_contrib.zip
mkvirtualenv cv -p python3
workon cv
pip install numpy
cd ~/tmp/opencv-3.4.1/
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE \
    -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local \
    -D INSTALL_PYTHON_EXAMPLES=ON \
    -D INSTALL_C_EXAMPLES=OFF \
    -D WITH_CUDA=OFF \
    -D WITH_FFMPEG=1 \
    -D OPENCV_EXTRA_MODULES_PATH=~/tmp/opencv_contrib-3.4.1/modules \
    -D PYTHON_EXECUTABLE=~/.virtualenvs/cv/bin/python \
    -D BUILD_EXAMPLES=ON ..
make -j8
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

PyTorch Development Environment

Now it is time to setup the python environment for PyTorch development.

mkvirtualenv pytorch -p python3 --system-site-packages
workon pytorch
cd ~/.virtualenvs/pytorch/lib/python3.5/site-packages
ln -s /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cv2.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so cv2.so
pip install http://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu90/torch-0.4.0-cp35-cp35m-linux_x86_64.whl 
pip install torchvision

Tensorflow Development Environment

Tensorflow can be setup equivalent to PyTorch by creating a new virtual environment, adding opencv and installing it via pip.

mkvirtualenv tf -p python3 --system-site-packages
workon tf
cd ~/.virtualenvs/tf/lib/python3.5/site-packages
ln -s /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cv2.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so cv2.so
pip install tensorflow-gpu