Skip to main content

Native installation on other Linux distributions

The Voyager SDK is validated on Ubuntu, but the Metis driver and SDK runtime can also be installed natively on other Linux distributions. This guide covers RHEL 10, RHEL 9, Debian 13, and Debian 12.

Version examples

The package versions below (for example 1.6.0rc1, 1.5.3) target the Voyager SDK v1.6 release. Replace them with the current release — see the Voyager SDK on GitHub for the latest.

RHEL 10​

Driver installation​

Option 1 — convert the .deb to .rpm:

sudo apt-get install alien
sudo alien --to-rpm metis-dkms_x.y.z_all.deb
sudo rpm -i metis-dkms_x.y.z_all.deb

Option 2 — build the .rpm natively:

sudo dnf install dkms cmake rpm-build fakeroot
# Substitute with external repo if needed
git clone git@github.com:axelera-ai/host.pcie-driver.linux.git
cd host.pcie-driver.linux
mkdir dkms/build && cd dkms/build
cmake ..
make metis-dkms-rpm-pkg
sudo rpm -i /rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/metis-dkms-X.Y.Z.noarch.rpm

Runtime installation​

# install the wheels
sudo dnf install cairo-devel cairo-gobject-devel gobject-introspection-devel python3-devel
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install --no-cache-dir --extra-index-url https://software.axelera.ai/artifactory/api/pypi/axelera-pypi/simple axelera-devkit[all]==1.6.0rc1 axelera-rt==1.6.0rc1

# run inference
axdownloadmodel --version 1.5.3 yolov8l-coco
axrunmodel yolov8l-coco

RHEL 9​

RHEL 9 ships with Python 3.9 by default, which is not supported. First install a more recent Python:

sudo dnf install python3.12 python3.12-devel

Driver installation​

Same as for RHEL 10.

Runtime installation​

# install the wheels
sudo dnf install cairo-devel cairo-gobject-devel gobject-introspection-devel python3-devel
python3.12 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install --no-cache-dir --extra-index-url https://software.axelera.ai/artifactory/api/pypi/axelera-pypi/simple axelera-devkit[all]==1.6.0rc1 axelera-rt==1.6.0rc1

# run inference
axdownloadmodel --version 1.5.3 yolov8l-coco
axrunmodel yolov8l-coco

Debian 13​

Driver installation​

Same as on Ubuntu (make sure the driver version includes the relevant fix).

dkms in PATH

Make sure dkms is in your $PATH. By default it is under /usr/sbin, which is not always in $PATH.

Runtime installation​

# install the wheels
sudo apt install python3-cairo python3-cairo-dev pkg-config libcairo2-dev libgirepository1.0-dev
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
CMAKE_POLICY_VERSION_MINIMUM=3.5 CXXFLAGS="-include cstdint" pip install --no-cache-dir --extra-index-url https://software.axelera.ai/artifactory/api/pypi/axelera-pypi/simple axelera-devkit[all]==1.6.0rc1 axelera-rt==1.6.0rc1

# run inference
axdownloadmodel --version 1.5.3 yolov8l-coco
axrunmodel yolov8l-coco
Debian 13 build flags

CMAKE_POLICY_VERSION_MINIMUM=3.5 is needed because cmake 3.31 (default on Debian 13) removed compatibility with cmake_minimum_required < 3.5. CXXFLAGS="-include cstdint" is needed because GCC 14 (default on Debian 13) no longer transitively includes <cstdint>.

Debian 12​

Debian 12 does not have DMA_BUF support, which is needed for good host performance. Enable it by installing a backported kernel:

# add backports repo
echo 'deb http://debian.ethz.ch/debian/ bookworm-backports main non-free-firmware' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/backports.list

# install the backports kernel
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports linux-image-amd64

# reboot
sudo /sbin/shutdown -r now

Driver installation​

Same as Debian 13.

Runtime installation​

# install the wheels
sudo apt install python3-cairo python3-cairo-dev pkg-config libcairo2-dev libgirepository1.0-dev
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install --no-cache-dir --extra-index-url https://software.axelera.ai/artifactory/api/pypi/axelera-pypi/simple axelera-devkit[all]==1.6.0rc1 axelera-rt==1.6.0rc1

# run inference
axdownloadmodel --version 1.5.3 yolov8l-coco
axrunmodel yolov8l-coco