PixInsight running well in WSL - CUDA next?

[rbotero]

Hello

Having recently upgraded my OS to Win11, I was keen to test the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) version 2 with GUI.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install#install

I am no programmer and can basically follow instructions online. I have a few Raspberry Pis scattered around the house and in the observatory so am fairly familiar with getting things done from the command line. I chose Ubuntu 20.04 LTS for my WSL installation and I have to say I was very impressed with how simple it was to get it running. I have had other Linux flavours running in Oracle VirtualBox but this is simpler and faster.

Following the instructions to install PixInsight in Linux was fine but when I tried to run it, it failed to launch complaining it was missing plugins from the Qt platform. Following the instructions at the bottom of this post fixed it: https://pixinsight.com/forum/index....-plugin-repost-from-general.15197/post-107954

PixInsight launches nicely and it's faster than my equivalent installation in Windows:

 

[rbotero]

I created a .wslconfig file to give the virtual machine a bit more juice than default following the instructions here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-config#wslconfig

The benchmark is some 15-20% faster than my Win11 instance with 20GB of RAM vs 32GB actual.

 

[rbotero]

Next, I was trying to get CUDA to work with processes such as StarNet and StarXterminator. I see that NVIDIA now provide drivers that work with WSL:

https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda/wsl

 

[rbotero]

I downloaded the driver and ran StarXterminator but PixInsight points to the fact that the tensorflow library has not been compiled to take advantage of the GPU:

I tried to follow the instructions here and see if I could get somewhere with tensorflow but it's beyond my capabilities: https://www.tensorflow.org/install/gpu#install_cuda_with_apt

 

[rbotero]

Anyone installed PixInsight in WSL yet? Anyone interested in trying to get tensorflow and CUDA to play ball?

Roberto

 

[rbotero]

CUDA, Tensorflow and GPU use seem to work in Ubuntu under Windows-WSL:

https://pixinsight.com/forum/index....btensorflow-gpu-under-linux.18180/post-110792

 

[const]

Is it to test WSL or there is some practical reason to use PixInsight this way?

 

[rbotero]

Both. To test WSL with a more complex application such as PixInsight and because the latter runs so much faster in Linux.
Roberto

 

[mar504]

Thank you for the instructions. I was able to follow along and got PI working, however after running the benchmark I received no performance benefit.

 

[rbotero]

Thank you for the instructions. I was able to follow along and got PI working, however after running the benchmark I received no performance benefit.

See my posts in this thread. It works with CUDA following a few more steps: https://pixinsight.com/forum/index....btensorflow-gpu-under-linux.18180/post-110792