Create a Debian package for Montblanc

[sjperkins]

It would be useful to have a debian kernsuite package for Montblanc.

In future, Montblanc will have a hard dependency on tensorflow 1.6 (and perhaps 1.7, as a release candidate has just come out). This in turn creates dependencies on

• CUDA 9.1
• cuDNN 7.0

CUDA 9.1 will be available in Ubuntu 18.04 bionic as a package. cuDNN 7.0 is a bit more tricky as I believe it is not redistributable (although debian packages are available here).

Part of the reason that I'm creating this issue is so that we can keep a record of conversations regarding packaging. I think the cuDNN dependency has come up in previous discussions and it would be good to remember these points.

[sjperkins]

The conda devs seem to have worked on somewhat similar problems:

conda-forge/staged-recipes#654

conda-forge/conda-forge.github.io#63

[gijzelaerr]

Yes, thanks for making this I priority. I would like to add that although it might not be possible at present time, it might be in the future. For that reason, I recommend keeping Montblanc compatible with Cuda 9.1 for now. But I know that also depends on what direction Tensorflow is going, which itself is a fast moving target.

[sjperkins]

One option might be to create a Montblanc package with a dependency on the CPU version of tensorflow, eliminating the CUDA and cuDNN dependencies.

[gijzelaerr]

would that still be useful?

[gijzelaerr]

related issue here kernsuite/packaging#129