Install OpenCL on Linux
To be able to compile OpenCL files we need to install the development headers, libraries, and the vendors SDKs.
There are three major players offering OpenCL SDKs: Nvidia, AMD, and Intel.
OpenCL Prerequisites
To compile and run OpenCL native applications we need a C/C++ compiler, cmake, and the Khronos canonical ICD loader
First make sure your computer is up-to-date.
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -yNow install the C++ compiler
sudo apt install build-essential -yCmake is used to build system used to simplify the build process.
sudo apt install cmake -yFinally, install the headers and the ICD loader
OpenCL headers contains definitions structures, constants and functions between others. To install them on Debian use the following command:
sudo apt install opencl-headers ocl-icd-opencl-dev -yclinfo tool
clinfo is a tool that provides properties of the CPUGPU components and devices available on the system as well as the supported extensions.
GitHub repository can be found here.
sudo apt-get install clinfo -yWhen you run it will output something like this:
Number of platforms 0
ICD loader properties
ICD loader Name OpenCL ICD Loader
ICD loader Vendor OCL Icd free software
ICD loader Version 2.3.1
ICD loader Profile OpenCL 3.0Now depending on the hardware of the system the appropriate ICD must be installed. Check the bottom of the guide to see the correct output of the command once the ICDs are installed
Note:
This output shows that we don't have a platform on our system. We are not done with the installation process yet.
Nvidia ICD
Under construction
I currently don't have an envidia to do the process of installation
AMD ICD
To install AMD mesa.icd and rusticl.icd you have to install mesa-opencl-icd mesa-vulkan-drivers
sudo apt-get install mesa-opencl-icdCheck the new ICDs using the following command:
ls /etc/OpenCL/vendors/Intel ICD
Intel provides a package called intel-opencl-icd that installs intel ICD
sudo apt-get install intel-opencl-icd -yOnce installed you will find intel.icd in OpenCL vendors file
ls /etc/OpenCL/vendors/clinfo output
This is the output that clinfo gives once it can see the AMD (in this case) GPU and get the platform info
Number of platforms 2
Platform Name Clover
Platform Vendor Mesa
Platform Version OpenCL 1.1 Mesa 22.3.6
Platform Profile FULL_PROFILE
Platform Extensions cl_khr_icd
Platform Extensions function suffix MESA
Platform Name rusticl
Platform Vendor Mesa/X.org
Platform Version OpenCL 3.0
Platform Profile FULL_PROFILE
Platform Extensions cl_khr_icd
Platform Extensions with Version cl_khr_icd 0x400000 (1.0.0)
Platform Numeric Version 0xc00000 (3.0.0)
Platform Extensions function suffix MESA
Platform Host timer resolution 0ns
Platform Name Clover
Number of devices 1
Device Name AMD Radeon RX 580 Series (polaris10, LLVM 15.0.6, DRM 3.49, 6.1.0-26-amd64)
Device Vendor AMD
Device Vendor ID 0x1002
Device Version OpenCL 1.1 Mesa 22.3.6
Device Numeric Version 0x401000 (1.1.0)
Driver Version 22.3.6
Device OpenCL C Version OpenCL C 1.1
Device OpenCL C Numeric Version 0x401000 (1.1.0)
Device Type GPU
Device Profile FULL_PROFILE
Device Available Yes
Compiler Available Yes
Max compute units 36
Max clock frequency 1370MHz
Max work item dimensions 3
Max work item sizes 256x256x256
Max work group size 256
Preferred work group size multiple (kernel) 64
Preferred / native vector sizes
char 16 / 16
short 8 / 8
int 4 / 4
long 2 / 2
half 0 / 0 (n/a)
float 4 / 4
double 2 / 2 (cl_khr_fp64)
Half-precision Floating-point support (n/a)
Single-precision Floating-point support (core)
Denormals No
Infinity and NANs Yes
Round to nearest Yes
Round to zero No
Round to infinity No
IEEE754-2008 fused multiply-add No
Support is emulated in software No
Correctly-rounded divide and sqrt operations No
Double-precision Floating-point support (cl_khr_fp64)
Denormals Yes
Infinity and NANs Yes
Round to nearest Yes
Round to zero Yes
Round to infinity Yes
IEEE754-2008 fused multiply-add Yes
Support is emulated in software No
Address bits 64, Little-Endian
Global memory size 8589934592 (8GiB)
Error Correction support No
Max memory allocation 2147483648 (2GiB)
Unified memory for Host and Device No
Minimum alignment for any data type 128 bytes
Alignment of base address 32768 bits (4096 bytes)
Global Memory cache type None
Image support No
Local memory type Local
Local memory size 65536 (64KiB)
Max number of constant args 16
Max constant buffer size 67108864 (64MiB)
Max size of kernel argument 1024
Queue properties
Out-of-order execution No
Profiling Yes
Profiling timer resolution 0ns
Execution capabilities
Run OpenCL kernels Yes
Run native kernels No
ILs with version SPIR-V 0x400000 (1.0.0)
Built-in kernels with version (n/a)
Device Extensions cl_khr_byte_addressable_store cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_int64_base_atomics cl_khr_int64_extended_atomics cl_khr_fp64 cl_khr_extended_versioning
Device Extensions with Version cl_khr_byte_addressable_store 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_int64_base_atomics 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_int64_extended_atomics 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_fp64 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_extended_versioning 0x400000 (1.0.0)
Platform Name rusticl
Number of devices 0
NULL platform behavior
clGetPlatformInfo(NULL, CL_PLATFORM_NAME, ...) Clover
clGetDeviceIDs(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_ALL, ...) Success [MESA]
clCreateContext(NULL, ...) [default] Success [MESA]
clCreateContext(NULL, ...) [other] <error: no devices in non-default plaforms>
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_DEFAULT) Success (1)
Platform Name Clover
Device Name AMD Radeon RX 580 Series (polaris10, LLVM 15.0.6, DRM 3.49, 6.1.0-26-amd64)
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_CPU) No devices found in platform
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_GPU) Success (1)
Platform Name Clover
Device Name AMD Radeon RX 580 Series (polaris10, LLVM 15.0.6, DRM 3.49, 6.1.0-26-amd64)
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_ACCELERATOR) No devices found in platform
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_CUSTOM) No devices found in platform
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_ALL) Success (1)
Platform Name Clover
Device Name AMD Radeon RX 580 Series (polaris10, LLVM 15.0.6, DRM 3.49, 6.1.0-26-amd64)
ICD loader properties
ICD loader Name OpenCL ICD Loader
ICD loader Vendor OCL Icd free software
ICD loader Version 2.3.1
ICD loader Profile OpenCL 3.0Now the real details of the platform can be seen. Once the platform SDK is installed we can move on to build our first program.
If you spot any typos, have questions, or need assistance with the build, feel free to contact me at: antonimercer@lthjournal.com
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Technologies used
Debian 12, Linux, OpenCL, C++, AMD, Nvidia, Intel, GPU