Tag Archives: deep learning

CUDA Compatibility of NVIDIA Display / GPU Drivers

Last update: December 2nd, 2023

The last post about CUDA installation guide was for CUDA 9.2. We went through several types of CUDA installation methods, including the multiple-version CUDA installs. While the guide is still valid for CUDA 9.2, NVIDIA keeps releasing newer versions of CUDA. As a concrete example, when this article was first written in December 2018, the latest CUDA version was CUDA 10, taking the spotlight from CUDA 9.2. If we are about to upgrade to CUDA 10, how can we achieve so? Can we simply upgrade the CUDA toolkit without upgrading the display driver?

Handling CUDA Version Upgrade

CUDA version upgrade itself can be a misleading term because since CUDA 8.0, multiple versions of CUDA can be installed on the same machine. But let’s have a simple scenario where we already have CUDA 9.1 installed and only want to upgrade to CUDA 10. NVIDIA states that each version of CUDA toolkit requires certain minimum NVIDIA display version that should be satisfied. This means that when upgrading to newer version of CUDA toolkit, we need to make sure that the currently installed display driver version is newer/bigger than the minimum compatible display driver version. In other words, standard CUDA upgrade involves two upgrade processes: CUDA (toolkit) upgrade and driver upgrade. The following picture visualizes the standard upgrade process from CUDA 9.1 to CUDA 10: the toolkit is upgraded from 9.1 to 10 and the driver is upgraded from 390 to 410.

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How to Resolve The Error “Illegal instruction (core dumped)” when Running “import tensorflow” in a Python Program

There are several ways to install TensorFlow on Ubuntu. The easiest way is to install via pip. Unfortunately, this easy installation may result in a bumpy first time experience of running TensorFlow. Consider the following one line Python script:

$ python -c 'import tensorflow as tf;'

This should be where the excitement begins, the moment where conviction about the new era of AI-powered banalities starts to bloom. Yet, the reality can be unexpectedly different. Executing the command may immediately raise this very infamous error:

Illegal instruction (core dumped)

This means that TensorFlow has crashed even before it does anything. What a surprise!

The good thing is that we can run gdb to debug Python and start analyzing the call stack. But what’s even better is that we can save the brilliance for later. This error has been repeatedly reported and has conveniently sat on its fame for a while, as reflected on the issue page. Continue reading

Installing CUDA Toolkit 9.2 on Ubuntu 16.04: Fresh Install, Install by Removing Older Version, Install and Retain Old Version

In the previous post, we’ve proceeded with CUDA 9.1 installation on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. As with other software that evolves, NVIDIA released CUDA 9.2 back in May. It is also safe to assume that CUDA 9.2 will not be final version. Newer version will may come soon or later and here we are left with the bogging question: “How can we upgrade safely without clobbering the currently working system?” Moreover, we may also wonder if there is a mechanism to rollback the change and live with current setup while recognizing that it’s not yet the time to upgrade.

This post will cover three scenarios of CUDA 9.2 installation: 1) fresh installation, 2) install to upgrade by removing old version, 3) install to upgrade and keep multiple versions. Continue reading

Command Cheatsheet: Checking Versions of Installed Software / Libraries / Tools for Deep Learning on Ubuntu 16.04

In the previous posts, we’ve walked through the installations and configurations for various components and libraries required for doing deep learning / artificial intelligence on a Ubuntu 16.04 box. The next step is to be productive, crunching codes and solving problems by applying various algorithms. At this stage, visits to StackOverflow, Github or other similar sites become more frequent. And here is when the problem may arise. Not all codes or snippets copied and pasted from such online references can immediately work. One of the reasons is that the code was indeed written for same software, library, or tool but at different version.

Interestingly, software components for machine learning present different way to obtain the versions. These variations can sometimes result in additional time spent to query “ubuntu get xyz version” on the search engine. This is okay for one component, but when the system becomes complex enough (for example machine learning meets big data for ETL), this can turn into a productivity killer due to unjustifiable time taken for navigating the search engine.

Why not build a list for that?

This post summarizes the shell commands used for obtaining the versions of machine learning-related software and libraries. Commands are embodied in categories that reflect the logical / functional unit the software component belongs to. Continue reading

What Object Categories / Labels Are In COCO Dataset?

One important element of deep learning and machine learning at large is dataset. A good dataset will contribute to a model with good precision and recall. In the realm of object detection in images or motion pictures, there are some household names commonly used and referenced by researchers and practitioners. The names in the list include Pascal, ImageNet, SUN, and COCO. In this post, we will briefly discuss about COCO dataset, especially on its distinct feature and labeled objects.

tl;dr The COCO dataset labels from the original paper and the released versions in 2014 and 2017 can be viewed and downloaded from this repository. Continue reading