NVIDIA Grace Blackwell + Canonical Support

Documentation
1

As of April 2026, here are Canonical’s recommendations for software use for both pre-production and production samples of NVIDIA Grace Blackwell rack-scale systems, including GB200 NVL72 and GB300 NVL72 systems (this does not apply to Grace Blackwell desktop systems, like the DGX Spark or the DGX Station)

Component Source
Operating System Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS2
Kernel linux-nvidia-64k-hwe-24.041, 2 (see installation instructions below)
GPU Drivers r580 open-source driver series (see installation instructions below)
CUDA Consume directly from NVIDIA’s repository (see installation instructions below)
DOCA-OFED Consume directly from NVIDIA’s repository (see installation instructions below)
QEMU and libvirt Canonical-supported Grace Blackwell-optimized packages from ppa:canonical-nvidia/nvidia-virtualization (see installation instructions below)

Instructions

Installing the -nvidia HWE Kernel
  1. Install Ubuntu 24.04 using the generic installer
  2. After install and reboot, install the linux-nvidia-hwe or linux-nvidia-64k-hwe kernel:
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install linux-nvidia-64k-hwe-24.04
  1. Reboot:
$ sudo reboot

After the machine has restarted, you can verify your kernel version by running

$ uname -r
Installing the NVIDIA r580 GPU Drivers
  1. For driver installation, we leverage ubuntu-drivers to automatically match modules to your kernel.
sudo ubuntu-drivers install --gpgpu nvidia:580-server-open
  1. Install the matching utilities package, Fabric Manager, and NVSwitch Configuration and Query Library
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-580-server nvidia-fabricmanager-580 libnvidia-nscq-580
Installing CUDA from NVIDIA's Repositories

Follow NVIDIA’s instructions to install CUDA.

:warning: You should only install the cuda-toolkit and versioned cuda-toolkit-<major> and cuda-toolkit-<major>-<minor> packages, and not the standalone cuda package or the nvidia-open package, as the latter packages will install unsigned DKMS drivers, which can conflict with Canonical’s recommended signed drivers.

Installing DOCA-OFED from NVIDIA's Repositories

Follow NVIDIA’s instructions to install DOCA-OFED.

:warning: Unlike in the CUDA section above, as of April 2026 Canonical does not provide signed DOCA-OFED drivers as part of Ubuntu. Therefore, when installing DOCA-OFED, you will need to install the DKMS drivers as described in NVIDIA’s instructions.

Installing QEMU and libvirt from the supported PPA
  1. Run sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-nvidia/nvidia-virtualization and sudo apt update
  2. Install desired set of QEMU and libvirt packages.

:warning: When adding the PPA to your machine, you may receive a message noting that the PPA is not supported. This is boilerplate automatically generated by Launchpad. This PPA is security-maintained by Canonical, and customers with support Contracts can raise support cases against it.

Footnotes

1As of April 2026, the 24.04 HWE kernel version is 6.17.

2Please note that end-user support on OEM derivatives is limited to certified hardware. Please see ubuntu.com/certified for a list of certified SKUs.

About Ubuntu Server Certification Programs

  • Learn more here.
  • Make your hardware stand out. Talk to us about certifying your products. Learn more about becoming certified.
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