Lesson 4: Package Management & System Info
Installing the CUDA Toolkit is an apt package like any other software, but knowing whether the driver actually loaded requires deeper knowledge. nvidia-smi is the first command every NVIDIA engineer runs on every new server, and lsmod | grep nvidia confirms the kernel module is loaded. This lesson t
apt is like an app store for the system. dpkg is the 'installer' that unpacks each package. lsmod is like checking if the engine (kernel module) is running, and nvidia-smi is the dashboard that shows you everything about the GPU in a clean format.
- APT (Advanced Package Tool)
- Command-line interface for package management on Debian/Ubuntu systems. apt install, apt update, and apt upgrade are the most common commands. apt resolves dependencies automatically.
- dpkg
- The low-level tool that installs and manages .deb packages directly. apt uses dpkg under the hood. dpkg -l lists all installed packages.
- Kernel Module
- Code that can be loaded and unloaded into the kernel at runtime without rebooting. The NVIDIA GPU driver (nvidia.ko) is a kernel module created during installation.
- lsmod
- Command that displays currently loaded kernel modules. Used to verify nvidia.ko loaded. Output is read from /proc/modules.
- nvidia-smi
- NVIDIA System Management Interface — a command-line tool showing detailed information about every GPU: name, memory, temperature, utilization, driver version, CUDA version, and running processes.
