Today, Canonical announced that it will begin packaging and distributing the NVIDIA CUDA toolkit directly within Ubuntu’s repositories. This move aims to streamline the installation process for developers by replacing the current multi-step installation method found on the NVIDIA website with a simple command that ensures a faster and smoother installation.
The CUDA toolkit offers a parallel computing platform that utilizes NVIDIA GPUs for general-purpose processing. Until now, developers needed to download the toolkit from NVIDIA’s official site, but with this integration, they will be able to access it directly through Ubuntu, which will include essential components such as GPU-accelerated libraries, debugging and optimization tools, C/C++ compiler, and runtime libraries.
The collaboration between Canonical and NVIDIA has made this advancement possible. As stated by Canonical, this initiative is designed to enhance developers’ experience, moving them towards a more native usage of CUDA within their development environment. With the new distribution model, developers will only need to declare the CUDA runtime; Ubuntu will efficiently manage its installation and compatibility with various supported NVIDIA hardware.
While Canonical has not specified an exact date for when the CUDA packages will be available in the repositories, they assure that it will be accessible across all supported Ubuntu versions, including both interim and long-term support releases. This change promises to make the CUDA toolkit not just more accessible, but also better integrated into the Ubuntu ecosystem, significantly benefiting application developers using this powerful tool.
For more details, check out the Canonical announcement.