# Axolotl Setup — miaai (RTX 5080, CUDA 13.2)

## System Info
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 5080 (16GB VRAM, sm_120 / Blackwell)
- Driver: 580.126.09 — max CUDA 13.0 shown by nvidia-smi, but nvcc from conda is 13.2
- OS: Ubuntu 25.10 (Python 3.13 system — do NOT use system Python for ML)
- Axolotl repo: `/home/tocmo0nlord/axolotl` (branch: `activeblue/main`)
- Conda env: `axolotl` at `/opt/miniconda3/envs/axolotl`

---

## Starting from Bare Ubuntu 25.10

If rebuilding from scratch, complete these steps first before anything else.

### A. System packages
```bash
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y \
  build-essential cmake git curl wget \
  python3-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev \
  ca-certificates gnupg lsb-release
```

### B. NVIDIA driver (580.xx)
Ubuntu 25.10 is too new for NVIDIA's apt repo. Install via ubuntu-drivers:
```bash
sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall
sudo reboot
```

After reboot, verify:
```bash
nvidia-smi
# Must show: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, Driver Version: 580.x
```

If ubuntu-drivers installs the wrong version, force the right one:
```bash
sudo apt install -y nvidia-driver-580
sudo reboot
```

### C. Install Ollama
```bash
curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

# Verify it's running
systemctl status ollama
```

### D. HuggingFace CLI
```bash
pip3 install huggingface_hub
huggingface-cli login
# Paste your HF token — required for gated models like meta-llama
```

Once steps A–D are done, continue with the One-time Setup below.

---

## Pre-Training Checklist (every session)

```bash
# 1. Stop Ollama — if it receives a request mid-training it will compete for VRAM
sudo systemctl stop ollama

# 2. Activate conda env
export PATH="/opt/miniconda3/bin:$PATH"
conda activate axolotl

# 3. Set env vars
export CUDA_HOME=$CONDA_PREFIX
export PATH=$CUDA_HOME/bin:$PATH
export PYTORCH_CUDA_ALLOC_CONF=expandable_segments:True

# 4. Confirm GPU is clear (should show no processes before training)
nvidia-smi --query-compute-apps=pid,process_name,used_memory --format=csv

# 5. Go to axolotl directory
cd /home/tocmo0nlord/axolotl
```

## Run Training
```bash
axolotl train ~/human_chat_qlora.yml
```

## After Training
```bash
# Restart Ollama
sudo systemctl start ollama

# Test the adapter interactively
axolotl inference ~/human_chat_qlora.yml \
  --lora-model-dir ~/outputs/llama31-8b-humanchat \
  --prompter chat

# (Optional) Merge adapter into base model for standalone deployment
axolotl merge-lora ~/human_chat_qlora.yml
```

---

## One-time Setup (fresh machine — after bare Ubuntu steps above)

### 1. Install Miniconda
```bash
wget https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh -O miniconda.sh
bash miniconda.sh -b -p /opt/miniconda3
/opt/miniconda3/bin/conda init bash
source ~/.bashrc
```

### 2. Create Python 3.11 environment
```bash
conda create -n axolotl python=3.11 -y
conda activate axolotl
```

### 3. Clone axolotl repo
```bash
git clone https://git.activeblue.net/tocmo0nlord/axolotl.git /home/tocmo0nlord/axolotl
cd /home/tocmo0nlord/axolotl
git remote add upstream https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/axolotl.git
git fetch upstream
git rebase upstream/main        # keeps activeblue patches on top
```

### 4. Install CUDA toolkit (needed to compile flash-attn and bitsandbytes)
```bash
conda install -y -c "nvidia/label/cuda-12.8.0" cuda-toolkit
export CUDA_HOME=$CONDA_PREFIX
export PATH=$CUDA_HOME/bin:$PATH
```

> NOTE: Despite installing from the cuda-12.8.0 channel, conda resolves nvcc to **13.2.78**.
> This is fine — use cu132 everywhere to match.

### 5. Install PyTorch — use cu132 (matches nvcc from conda)
```bash
# torchaudio has no cu132 wheel — skip it, not needed for LLM training
pip install torch torchvision --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu132
python -c "import torch; print('CUDA:', torch.version.cuda); print('GPU:', torch.cuda.get_device_name(0))"
```

### 6. Install Axolotl
```bash
cd /home/tocmo0nlord/axolotl
pip install -e "."
```

### 7. Install flash-attn
> Compiles CUDA kernels from source — takes 15–25 min on 10 cores of i7-14700K.
```bash
MAX_JOBS=10 pip install flash-attn --no-build-isolation
```

### 8. Compile bitsandbytes from source for sm_120 (RTX 5080 / Blackwell)

Prebuilt wheels do not include sm_120. CUDA 13.2 also dropped sm_50–53.
Must compile from source with a patched CMakeLists.txt.

```bash
# Clone bitsandbytes v0.49.1
git clone --branch v0.49.1 --depth 1 \
  https://github.com/bitsandbytes-foundation/bitsandbytes.git /tmp/bnb_0491

# Patch CMakeLists.txt: insert sm_120 override before the foreach loop
# (cmake >= 3.23.0 uses its own built-in arch list which does not include sm_120)
sed -i '/    foreach(capability \${CMAKE_CUDA_ARCHITECTURES_ALL})/i\    # RTX 5080 sm_120 patch\n    set(CMAKE_CUDA_ARCHITECTURES_ALL 120)' /tmp/bnb_0491/CMakeLists.txt

# Verify patch landed correctly — set() line must appear immediately before foreach
grep -n "ARCHITECTURES_ALL\|foreach" /tmp/bnb_0491/CMakeLists.txt | tail -5

# Configure — must point cmake at conda's nvcc explicitly
cmake \
  -DCMAKE_CUDA_COMPILER=/opt/miniconda3/envs/axolotl/bin/nvcc \
  -DCOMPUTE_BACKEND=cuda \
  -S /tmp/bnb_0491 \
  -B /tmp/bnb_0491/build 2>&1 | grep -E "(Capabilit|CUDA Ver|Error)"
# Must show: CUDA Capabilities Selected: 120

# Build (adjust -j to your CPU core count)
cmake --build /tmp/bnb_0491/build -j10

# Install into conda site-packages
cp -r /tmp/bnb_0491/bitsandbytes \
  /opt/miniconda3/envs/axolotl/lib/python3.11/site-packages/

# Verify CUDA works
python3 -c "
import torch, bitsandbytes as bnb
x = torch.randn(64, 64, device='cuda')
l = bnb.nn.Linear8bitLt(64, 64).cuda()
print('bitsandbytes CUDA OK:', l(x).shape)
"
```

### 9. Copy training config to home
```bash
cp /home/tocmo0nlord/axolotl/human_chat_qlora.yml ~/human_chat_qlora.yml
```

### 10. Verify the full stack
```bash
python3 -c "
import torch, bitsandbytes as bnb, flash_attn, transformers
print('torch      :', torch.__version__, '| CUDA:', torch.version.cuda)
print('bitsandbytes:', bnb.__version__)
print('flash_attn :', flash_attn.__version__)
print('transformers:', transformers.__version__)
print('GPU        :', torch.cuda.get_device_name(0))
print('VRAM       :', round(torch.cuda.get_device_properties(0).total_memory/1e9, 1), 'GB')
"
```

Expected output:
```
torch      : 2.x.x | CUDA: 13.2
bitsandbytes: 0.50.0.dev0
flash_attn : 2.x.x
transformers: 5.x.x
GPU        : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080
VRAM       : 16.3 GB
```

---

## Training Config — human_chat_qlora.yml

Key settings tuned for RTX 5080 (16GB):

| Setting | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `sequence_len` | `2048` | 4096 OOMs during loss computation (logits x 128k vocab) |
| `micro_batch_size` | `1` | Effective batch = micro x grad_accum = 8 |
| `gradient_accumulation_steps` | `8` | Keeps effective batch size at 8 |
| `adapter` | `qlora` | 4-bit via bitsandbytes compiled from source |
| `attn_implementation` | `flash_attention_2` | Not the deprecated `flash_attention: true` |
| `type` (datasets) | `chat_template` | Not the deprecated `sharegpt` |

Expected training metrics (RTX 5080, ~65k samples, 2 epochs):
- VRAM: ~10–11 GB active, ~11 GB allocated
- Training duration: ~3.5 hours
- Initial eval loss: ~0.81, perplexity ~2.25
- Final loss target: ~0.55–0.60

To push VRAM to ~14GB and improve training: set `micro_batch_size: 2` and `gradient_accumulation_steps: 4`.

---

## Common Pitfalls

| Problem | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| `externally-managed-environment` | System Python 3.13 blocks pip | Use conda env, never system pip |
| `No module named torch` (flash-attn) | pip builds in isolated env | Use `--no-build-isolation` |
| `CUDA_HOME not set` | CUDA toolkit not installed | `conda install cuda-toolkit` from nvidia channel |
| `CUDA version mismatch 13.2 vs 12.8` | Conda nvcc is 13.2, torch was cu128 | Reinstall torch with `--index-url .../cu132` |
| `torchaudio` not found for cu132 | No cu132 wheel exists | Skip torchaudio — not needed |
| flash-attn compile is slow | Single-threaded by default | Set `MAX_JOBS=<cpu_count>` before pip install |
| `nvcc fatal: Unsupported gpu architecture 'compute_50'` | bitsandbytes CMakeLists.txt hardcodes sm_50; CUDA 13.2 dropped it | Patch CMakeLists.txt (see step 8 above) |
| `CUDA Capabilities Selected: 50;52;...` ignores -D flag | cmake >= 3.23 built-in arch list lacks sm_120; CMakeLists.txt overrides -D | Insert `set(CMAKE_CUDA_ARCHITECTURES_ALL 120)` before foreach loop |
| `BackendUnavailable: scikit_build_core` | pip install of bnb triggers cmake rebuild | Copy .so directly to site-packages instead |
| `torch.OutOfMemoryError` during eval | logits tensor (batch x 4096 x 128k vocab) too large | Set `sequence_len: 2048`, `micro_batch_size: 1` |
| `type: sharegpt` deprecation warning | axolotl removed sharegpt type | Use `type: chat_template` with field mappings |
| `flash_attention: true` deprecation | Old config key removed | Use `attn_implementation: flash_attention_2` |
| Capybara dataset `field_messages null` | Capybara uses input/output format, not conversations | Switch to SlimOrca or OpenHermes-2.5 |
| Ollama loads model mid-training | Ollama is enabled and receives a request | `sudo systemctl stop ollama` before training |
| Training much slower than eval speed | The fast it/s on screen is the eval loop (forward only) | Normal — training includes backward pass and optimizer (~3.5h total) |
| ubuntu-drivers installs wrong NVIDIA version | Multiple driver candidates available | Force with `apt install nvidia-driver-580` |