Installing Prerequisites#

This article describes how to install the prerequisite packages necessary for the FuriosaAI software stack, namely the device driver, firmware, and PE Runtime. These packages are available for Debian and Ubuntu systems.

Requirements#

The minimum requirements are as follows:

  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (or Debian Bookworm) or later

  • Linux Kernel 6.3 or later

  • Administrator privileges (root)

Checking for Installed Devices#

To confirm that FuriosaAI devices are correctly installed on your system, run the following command:

lspci -nn | grep FuriosaAI

If the device is properly installed, the output will be similar to the following:

4e:00.0 Processing accelerators [1200]: FuriosaAI, Inc. Device [1ed2:0001] (rev 01)

If the lspci command is not available, you can install it and update the PCIe ID database using the following commands:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y pciutils
sudo update-pciids

Setting up APT#

To use the APT server provided by FuriosaAI, follow the steps below:

  1. Install the required packages and register the signing key.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y curl gnupg
curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/cloud.google.gpg
  1. Configure the APT server for your Linux distribution by executing the following command:

echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture)] http://asia-northeast3-apt.pkg.dev/projects/furiosa-ai $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/furiosa.list

Installing Prerequisite Packages#

After registering FuriosaAI’s APT server as described above, you can now install the required packages: the device driver, the PE Runtime, and optionally the device control/information tool (furiosa-smi).

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential linux-modules-extra-$(uname -r) linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo apt install furiosa-driver-rngd furiosa-pert-rngd furiosa-smi

Adding a user to the furiosa Group#

Linux is a multi-user operating system that enables file and device access for both the owner and users within a specific group. The RNGD device driver creates a group called furiosa and restricts access to RNGD devices exclusively to users who are members of the furiosa group. To add a user to a member of furiosa group, please run as follows:

sudo usermod -aG friosa <username>

Replace <username> with the name of the user you want to add to the furiosa group. For example, in order to add the current user (i.e., $USER) to the furiosa group, you can run as follows:

sudo usermod -aG furiosa $USER

Upon logging out and logging back in, the change to the group membership will take effect.

Verifying NPU Device Installation#

Once the device driver and furiosa-smi are successfully installed, you can check the list of NPU devices by running the following command:

furiosa-smi info

Example output:

+------+--------+----------------+---------+---------+--------------+
| Arch | Device | Firmware       | Temp.   | Power   | PCI-BDF      |
+------+--------+----------------+---------+---------+--------------+
| rngd | npu0   | 0.0.16+b4a67ca | 28.88°C | 38.00 W | 0000:4e:00.0 |
+------+--------+----------------+---------+---------+--------------+

Please refer to Furiosa SMI CLI to learn more about the furiosa-smi command.

Upgrading Device Firmware#

Upgrading the firmware can improve the performance and stability of the devices. If there is newer firmware in the latest release, you can upgrade it using the following commands:

sudo apt install furiosa-firmware-tools-rngd furiosa-firmware-image-rngd

Installing the furiosa-firmware-image-rngd package will automatically upgrade the firmware. The process takes 3 to 5 minutes per device to complete. The firmware upgrade process may require a reboot to complete the installation.

Note

Please remember to cold reboot the system after the firmware upgrade process is completed. For more information about the firmware upgrade process. If the firmware upgrade process is interrupted, the device may become unusable. In this case, please contact FuriosaAI support for assistance.