Getting Started with Machine Learning

This is User:Ben's guide to getting started with machine learning.

Dependencies

Here's some useful dependencies that I use:

• uv
  • This is similar to Pip but written in Rust and is way faster
  • It has nice management of virtual environments
  • Can use Conda instead but it is much slower
• Github Copilot
• mlfab
  • This is a Python package I made to help make it easy to quickly try out machine learning ideas in PyTorch
• Coding tools
  • mypy static analysis
  • black code formatter
  • ruff alternative to flake8

uv

To get started with uv, pick a directory you want your virtual environment to live in. ($HOME is not recommended.) Once you have cded there, run

uv venv

To activate your virtual environment, run

source .venv/bin/activate

• while in the directory you created your .venv in*.

Installing Starter Project

• Go to this project and install it

Opening the project in VSCode

• Create a VSCode config file that looks something like this:

{
  "folders": [
    {
      "name": "Getting Started",
      "path": "/home/ubuntu/Github/getting_started"
    },
    {
      "name": "Workspaces",
      "path": "/home/ubuntu/.code-workspaces"
    }
  ],
  "settings": {
    "cmake.configureSettings": {
      "CMAKE_CUDA_COMPILER": "/usr/bin/nvcc",
      "CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH": [
        "/home/ubuntu/.virtualenvs/getting-started/lib/python3.11/site-packages/torch/share/cmake"
      ],
      "PYTHON_EXECUTABLE": "/home/ubuntu/.virtualenvs/getting-started/bin/python",
      "TORCH_CUDA_ARCH_LIST": "'8.0'"
    },
    "python.defaultInterpreterPath": "/home/ubuntu/.virtualenvs/getting-started/bin/python",
    "ruff.path": [
      "/home/ubuntu/.virtualenvs/getting-started/bin/ruff"
    ]
  }
}

• Install the VSCode SSH extension
• SSH into the cluster (see K-Scale Cluster for instructions)
• Open the workspace that you created in VSCode

Useful Brain Dump Stuff

• Use breakpoint() to debug code
• Check out the mlfab examples directory for some ideas
• It is a good idea to try to write the full training loop yourself to figure out what's going on
• Run nvidia-smi to see the GPUs and their statuses/any active processes