Preparations in Windows

Note that you will need internet access for both the Windows and the Linux setup. First, complete the Windows installation.

Then, set up safe mode in Windows:

1. Click the Start button and enter cmd
2. Right-click the result and select ‘Run as administrator’
3. Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal (Alternatively: bcdedit /set safeboot minimal)

Also disable encryption:

1. Start powershell as administrator (start button, type powershell, right-click, run as administrator)
2. Type Disable-BitLocker -MountPoint “C:”
3. Type manage-bde -off C:
4. (see http://users.isr.ist.utl.pt/~mbayat/hacks/how-to-remove-bitlocker-encryption-in-wind ows-10/)

Then wait a minute and reboot in setup (hit F12 while booting). Note that setup does not support the touchpad very well, so either connect a mouse or use a keyboard.

1. Choose “secure boot” and uncheck “secure boot enable”
2. Choose “system configuration” then “SATA operation”, then switch it to AHCI

Save and exit and go back to Windows.
Then, disable safe mode in Windows:

1. Right-click the Windows Start Menu once more. Choose Command Prompt (Admin)
2. Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot (ALT: bcdedit /deletevalue safeboot)
3. Reboot once more and Windows will automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled

Installation of the NVIDIA drivers

In Linux, open the start menu, type “software & updates” and open it. Then go to the “additional drivers” tab and select “using NVIDIA driver metapackage” and hit apply. Reboot the system.

Note that it is easy to switch back if you follow the same procedure. The Nouveau drivers (open source) do not offer CUDA, but they are more stable (e.g. during suspend/resume).

Restart the computer, and open a terminal, and type “nvidia-smi”. It should show your NVIDIA card memory and usage.

For CUDA 10 you need a newer version of the NVIDIA drivers. NVIDIA Driver 410.93 can be installed in the same way as above provided that the NVIDIA repository is added by opening a terminal and running:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

Fix broken suspend/resume

If you notice that suspend/resume no longer works after installing the NVIDIA drivers, the workaround described here worked perfectly for us. It boils down to change /etc/default/grub, so that the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX entry looks like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nouveau.blacklist=1 acpi_osi=!
acpi_osi=\"Windows 2015\" acpi_backlight=vendor
mem_sleep_default=deep"

Switching back and forth between Nvidia and Intel GPU

The Intel GPU offers better battery life, so if you don’t need CUDA you can easily switch by doing (on the terminal):

sudo nvidia-select intel

followed by a reboot

When you need the NVIDIA GPU again, you can switch back:

sudo nvidia-select nvidia

again followed by a reboot.

You can find out which GPU is active by runnning:

prime-select query

We did not try Bumblebee (see here for documentation) so we are not sure if it works or/and if it saves power.

sudo apt install build-essential cmake
sudo bash cuda_9.0.176_384.81_linux.run –overrid

sudo bash <patchfile>

tar -zxf cudnn-*.tgz
sudo cp -a cuda/* /usr/local/cuda/

sudo su – # become root
echo /usr/local/cuda/lib64 > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/cuda.conf
ldconfig

echo “export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/cuda/bin” > ~/.bashrc

sudo apt install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install tensorflow-gpu keras jupyter matplotlib pandas

python3
import tensorflow as tf
tf.Session()

Other optional software

Installing and configuring QTCreator so that it will do smart code completion for any CMAKE based project

sudo apt install qtcreator

Start qtcreator

• help -> about plugins
• Enable CLangCodeModel and restart qtcreator
• Now you can just open any CMakelists.txt with qtcreator and it will open the project