NVIDIA Grace Software with Generic Linux

NVIDIA® Grace systems are capable of running a variety of Linux distributions that support the AArch64 architecture. With the proper kernel support and configurations, you can run a Linux distro and take advantage of the advanced Grace features.

This guide provides information about installing a generic Linux distribution on Grace systems and recommends solutions for issues that might occur.

Attention

Although you can use other Linux distributions, only Ubuntu 22.04-24.04, RHEL 9.2-9.5, and SLES 15 SP5-SP6 have been tested and prevalidated by NVIDIA for Grace platforms.

Prerequisites

This section lists the required (or recommended) prerequisites.

Linux Kernel

One of the key components for a successful experience with a generic Linux distro on the Grace platform is the Linux kernel version. The closer the kernel version for your distribution is to the latest upstream Linux kernel version, the less likely it is that an issue will occur. Although the initial Grace enablement was in Linux kernel v6.2, continued improvements and optimizations have been incorporated in subsequent releases. For the best possible experience, NVIDIA recommends that you select Linux distributions that directly (or indirectly using backport) use Linux kernel v6.8 or later.

The configuration of the kernel is also important because these settings dictate the scale of the platform that is supported, the features of the hardware that are exploited, and can greatly impact the overall performance of the system. The upstream arm64 defconfig can be a good starting point for these settings, NVIDIA recommends that you review the Grace Platform Software Support guide, the NVIDIA Grace Performance Tuning Guide, and the NVIDIA GH200 Benchmarking Guide. These documents can help you determine whether the kernel for your Linux distro can support the Grace platform and list the required and recommended kernel configuration settings.

NVIDIA Reference Kernel

As an additional resource, NVIDIA recommends consulting the public git repository for the Ubuntu linux-nvidia kernel variant. This repository contains the patches required for the Grace platform and can be considered as a reference for the system software stack. It provides an additional stream of kernel patch and configuration information and in some circumstances might be more current than the Grace Platform Software Support - Software Patches and Configurations guide. Additionally, as a Git repository, it allows you to select specific commits that some users, like those that roll their own kernel might find useful.