Let's build something!

Today is my first day on the job! I thought today was going to be a pretty straightforward day, until I tried to install the CUDA driver, but more on that later.

Basically for today I wanted to get the CUDA system up and running. This required me to take a desktop computer system and add a CUDA compatible GPU. This went pretty smoothly, I added a BFG Nvida GTX 280 and a 500 watt power supply. I even managed to take a picture so enjoy that!

After the hardware was installed I had to install the operating system. For this I chose Fedora 10 x86_64. This was the OS of choice mostly because my professor is also building a CUDA system and he is using the same OS. I want to be able to pick his brain when I get stuck and or confused. The OS install went smoothly.

The rest of the day was spent trying to get the CUDA driver from Nvidia to install. This thing has been a pain. Nvidia supplies you with a .run Shell script to install the driver from a compressed file. It must be compiled on the system so that it works correctly with the linux kernel. I have been getting an error that says the nvidia module can not be loaded. The good news is I think I have found a solution and will let you all know how it goes tomorrow.