How to Install NVIDIA Drivers & CUDA on Ubuntu 26.04 for H100 GPUs




Before You Start: What You'll Need

  • A fresh install of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, x86_64, with sudo access

  • An NVIDIA H100 (PCIe or SXM variant) installed and recognized on the PCIe bus

  • At least 8 GB of free disk space for the driver, toolkit, and sample programs

  • A stable internet connection to pull packages from Ubuntu's archive and NVIDIA's repository

  • BIOS setting "Above 4G Decoding" / "Large BARs" enabled — required for the H100 to be addressed correctly by the OS

If you're deploying on a hosted server rather than local hardware, check your provider's GPU servers or GPU dedicated servers – USA page for available H100 configurations, or reach out through our contact page if you need a custom build.

Step 1: Update the System and Install Build Tools

Start with a clean, updated base and the packages needed to build kernel modules:

bash
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) dkms wget curl

dkms is important here — it rebuilds the NVIDIA kernel module automatically whenever the kernel updates, so a routine apt upgrade doesn't break your GPU driver.

Learn how to configure your bare-metal gpu servers properly with our step-by-step terminal guide: 
 https://www.gtzhost.com/tutorials/howto/install-nvidia-drivers-cuda-ubuntu-26-04-h100/ 

Location: United States

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