# Requirements

## Supported, and what that word means here

Nodeau Alpha states support in four levels, because "works on NVIDIA GPUs" is
not a useful claim.

| Level | Meaning |
|---|---|
| **Supported / measured** | Tested on real hardware, with published numbers |
| **Compatible but unmeasured** | Should work; no measurements exist |
| **Unsupported** | Known not to work, or deliberately refused |
| **Unknown** | Not investigated |

## Operating system

| | Status |
|---|---|
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (native) | **Supported / measured** |
| Other Ubuntu releases | Unknown — the installer warns |
| Other Linux distributions | Unknown — pinned packages are chosen for Ubuntu 24.04 |
| WSL / WSL2 | **Unsupported** — the installer detects and refuses |
| macOS, Windows | **Unsupported** |

## Architecture

| | Status |
|---|---|
| x86_64 | **Supported / measured** |
| arm64 | **Unsupported** — no build is published |

## GPU

| | Status |
|---|---|
| NVIDIA RTX 3080 (10 GB) | **Supported / measured** — the development baseline |
| Other NVIDIA, compute ≥ 7.0 | **Compatible but unmeasured** |
| AMD, Intel, Apple | **Unsupported** |
| Multiple GPUs | **Unsupported** in Alpha — one GPU is used |

On an unmeasured GPU, Nodeau will tell you it has no validated profile for your
configuration rather than guessing at VRAM. That is not a bug.

## Driver

You need a working NVIDIA driver **before** installing Nodeau. Check:

```bash
nvidia-smi
```

If that prints a table, you are ready. If it does not, install your driver
through your distribution first. Nodeau will not install, upgrade or change
your driver, and it will not disable Secure Boot to make one load — those are
decisions with consequences for whether your machine boots, and they are
yours.

## Disk

| | |
|---|---|
| Nodeau itself | < 100 MB |
| Container images | ~3 GB |
| Starter model (Qwen3-8B Q4_K_M) | 4.7 GB |
| **Recommended free space** | **20 GB** |

The model cache must be on a Linux-native filesystem. Nodeau checks, and
refuses to put state on NTFS or a filesystem it cannot identify.

## Memory

16 GB RAM or more is recommended. Model files pass through system memory on
their way to the GPU.

## Network

Installation needs outbound HTTPS to reach the release, the container images
and the model publisher. Nodeau opens no inbound ports and needs no port
forwarding.