Installation Guide for CUDA on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

CUDA is the industry standard for working with GPU-HPC . In this document, we are going to install Nvidia CUDA toolkit for carrying out high-performance computing (HPC) with an Nvidia Graphics Processing Unit (GPU. We will carry out the process under the Ubuntu version 14.04.
Checking of gcc
The first task is to make sure that whether the system having GNU compiler collection (GCC) tools installed. Below command will check gcc

 #gcc --version

Typical output :

Installation of build essentials. The package build-essential also another pre requisite for cuda installation. Execute below command if not present in the system.

 #sudo apt-get install build-essential 

We are assuming the system having 64 Bit Ubuntu Operating System. The next step is to download the specific DEB package for the 64-bit version of CUDA for Ubuntu 14.04 explained below section.

Downloading CUDA package from NVIDIA website
Navigate to the link https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-80-ga2-download-archive and download the appropriate package.
Installation of CUDA

Once the deb file is successfully downloaded, we need to install the package. First navigate to the folder where the package is downloaded. Suppose the folder is /root/cuda. 

Then execute the commands mentioned in the above screenshot.

 #dpkg -i cuda-repo-ubuntu1404-8-0-local-ga2_8.0.61-1_amd64.deb

Typical output like this: 

Then update the package list from the repositories using the below command.

 #apt-get update

Then install CUDA by executing the following command. 

#apt-get install cuda

After a couple of minutes the installation will complete. After successful installation, you can see similar windows like below:

After successful installation of cuda, binary folder PATH should be added in system path variable location as shown in below figure.

Use any editor to edit this.

Save and exit
Patching of cuda installation. There is a executable binary for patching existing installation . This patch is required for Performance enhancement and bug-fixes.

To patch it, just execute below command.

 #dpkg -i cuda-repo-ubuntu1404-8-0-local-cublas-performance-update_8.0.61-1_amd64.deb

Install CUDNN

CUDNN makes CNNs faster with some other optimizations.
Navigate the URL https://developer.nvidia.com/rdp/cudnn-archive and register for an account (it's free). After you make your account, login , search cudnn and go to downloads page.

Choose the two package red marked in the below image.

After downloading the required package, install it by below command and check their corresponding output

 #dpkg -i libcudnn7_7.0.5.15-1+cuda8.0_amd64.deb

Typical output:

#dpkg -i libcudnn7-dev_7.0.5.15-1+cuda8.0_amd64.deb

Typical output:

After successful installation of both the deb package,

Restart the PC to activate CUDA and new drivers.Validation of cuda installation

Now we are ready to validate the CUDA installation.Just execute the following command in the terminal.

 #nvcc --version

 If the installation was successful, we should see the CUDA compiler version as seen in this screenshot.

Alternatively you can also execute the following command in the terminal. This gives more detailed information about the drivers.

 #nvidia-smi

This competes the cuda installation process.

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