AlmaLinux users no longer have to juggle Nvidia workarounds: CUDA and GPU drivers are moving into the distro’s normal package workflow.
Nvidia has added official CUDA support for Linux distributions that are compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Benefiting most from this will be AlmaLinux, whose biggest competitor in the RHEL-clone arena, Rocky Linux, already offers direct CUDA availability to users of its subscription-based Rocky Linux from CIQ variations. This should help tighten the gap that has been developing between the two, as CIQ has lately been busy increasing the number of supported use-case-based variations of Rocky Linux it offers.
This is important for enterprises running — or planning to run — AI workloads on Nvidia GPUs, since CUDA is Nvidia’s go-to accelerated computing platform and programming model. It includes optimized libraries and development tools for developing and deploying accelerated workloads for Nvidia GPUs.
While CUDA’s not the AI superhero that Nvidia would have you think it is, it’s at least somewhat essential for developers, ML engineers, researchers, and the like who are looking to get the most bang for their Nvidia hardware bucks. Its use generally outperforms generic CPU or OpenCL in typical real-world implementations.
For AlmaLinux users, Nvidia’s support for RHEL-compatible operating systems means that users will no longer have to go to Nvidia’s repos to download and install CUDA, but will be able to grab the platform seamlessly from AlmaLinux. It also means that users should no longer have to go through brief periods of drivers and userspace mismatch after an Nvidia update.
This will make maintaining Nvidia hardware a part of AlmaLinux’s regular workflow — done alongside everything else, with no side channels — which puts AlmaLinux on par with not only RLC, but with Ubuntu and RHEL.
“For anyone that was already using our release of the open source Nvidia drivers on AlmaLinux, the changes will be completely transparent,” AlmaLinux’s Jonathan Wright said in a post on the distro’s website. “The next time you update, the packages will be updated to point to the correct versions without you having to make any changes at all.”
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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