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Tech Jarves 25b9a5c965 add linux
2026-06-09 10:55:47 +00:00

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Linux Port Plan for Local AI Image Generator

Plan location: This plan will be copied to the project root as PLAN.md upon approval, per user request.

Implementation Update (post-verification)

During end-to-end testing, the third-party Linux CUDA binary (leaxer-ai/leaxer-stable-diffusion) was found to segfault during generation after successfully loading the model. As a result, Linux CUDA support was removed from the implementation. Linux NVIDIA GPUs now use the Vulkan backend. The setup script also gained a glibc version check, because the official leejet Linux binaries require glibc 2.38+ (Ubuntu 24.04). The frontend's misleading "mock SVG" fallback was replaced with a real error message when the backend crashes. See the updated README for build-from-source instructions.

1. What This Project Does

Local AI Image Generator is a zero-configuration, portable desktop environment for running Stable Diffusion (Safetensors / GGUF / CKPT) completely offline. The Windows flow is:

  1. Entry Point: start.bat double-click launcher.
  2. Setup: scripts/setup.ps1 auto-downloads portable Node.js for Windows, detects the GPU vendor, downloads the matching stable-diffusion.cpp backend (CUDA for NVIDIA, Vulkan for AMD/Intel), installs npm dependencies, and builds the Vite+React frontend into app/dist/.
  3. Runtime: scripts/serve.cjs (a Node.js HTTP server) serves the static frontend on localhost:1420, manages the backend process lifecycle, proxies generation requests, handles model downloads/imports, tracks telemetry, and manages the gallery.
  4. All sandboxed: Everything lives under the project folder (app/tools/, app/backend/, app/models/, app/outputs/). No global PATH changes, no system installers.

2. Research Findings

2.1 stable-diffusion.cpp Linux Binaries

We researched the upstream project (leejet/stable-diffusion.cpp) and third-party builders. The following Linux x86_64 binaries are available:

Backend Source Availability Approx. Size Notes
CPU leejet official releases ✅ Available ~20–30 MB Generic x86_64 CPU binary
Vulkan leejet official releases ✅ Available ~100 MB Cross-vendor GPU (AMD, Intel, NVIDIA)
ROCm leejet official releases ✅ Available ~1.2 GB AMD GPU; requires host ROCm kernel driver
CUDA leejet official releases ❌ Not published N/A See section 2.2
CUDA leaxer-ai/leaxer-stable-diffusion (third-party) ❌ Rejected ~115 MB Loads models but segfaults during generation; removed from setup.

Critical Finding: Upstream does not publish Linux CUDA binaries. There is an open feature request (leejet/stable-diffusion.cpp#1291) but no official support yet.

2.2 Linux CUDA Feasibility Analysis

We evaluated the third-party leaxer-ai/leaxer-stable-diffusion Linux CUDA binary:

  • The binary downloads successfully and is a valid ELF executable.
  • It loads models and initializes CUDA without errors.
  • However, it segfaults as soon as image generation starts (reproduced on NVIDIA L4 with TXT2IMG).
  • Because the binary is non-functional for its intended purpose, the project does not download or use it.

Decision: Linux CUDA support is disabled until a reliable prebuilt binary becomes available (either from upstream leejet or a verified third-party builder). Linux NVIDIA systems fall back to the Vulkan backend, which uses the same GPU via the NVIDIA Vulkan driver.

Users who need native CUDA performance on Linux can build stable-diffusion.cpp from source with -DSD_CUDA=ON and copy the resulting binary into app/backend/linux/cuda/; see README for instructions.

2.3 Portable Node.js for Linux

  • Node.js distributes node-v22.12.0-linux-x64.tar.xz (matching the Windows LTS version already used).
  • Fully portable: extract with tar and run bin/node / bin/npm directly.

2.4 Zero-Dependency GPU Detection on Linux

To avoid requiring lspci, lshw, or other host packages, we can parse PCI vendor IDs directly from sysfs:

  • Read /sys/bus/pci/devices/*/vendor
  • NVIDIA: 0x10de
  • AMD: 0x1002
  • Intel: 0x8086 This is pure file I/O and works in any Linux environment with sysfs.

2.5 Extraction Strategy (No Host unzip Required)

  • Node.js .tar.xz → extracted with tar (universally available on Linux).
  • Backend .zip files → extracted using Node.js after bootstrapping (e.g., via adm-zip or a small inline script), or fall back to python3 -m zipfile if needed.
  • NVIDIA CUDA redist .tar.xz → extracted with tar.

3. Implementation Approach: Maximum Performance (All Four Backends)

Based on your feedback, the recommended approach is to support CPU + Vulkan + ROCm + CUDA on Linux.

3.1 Backend Selection Matrix

Vendor Primary Backend Fallback Backend Source
NVIDIA CUDA (best perf) Vulkan CUDA = leaxer third-party; Vulkan = leejet official
AMD ROCm (best perf) Vulkan ROCm = leejet official; Vulkan = leejet official
Intel Vulkan CPU Vulkan = leejet official
No GPU / Unknown CPU — CPU = leejet official

3.2 Backend Directory Layout (Linux)

app/backend/
├── win/
│   ├── cuda/sd-cuda.exe
│   └── vulkan/sd-vulkan.exe
└── linux/
    ├── cpu/sd-cpu
    ├── vulkan/sd-vulkan
    ├── rocm/sd-rocm + libstable-diffusion.so
    └── cuda/sd-cuda + libstable-diffusion.so + libcudart.so.12 + libcublas.so.12 + libcublasLt.so.12

4. Files to Create / Modify

New Files

  1. start.sh — Bash entry point equivalent to start.bat.

    • Checks for portable Node.js and frontend build.
    • Runs scripts/setup.sh if anything is missing.
    • Starts scripts/serve.cjs with the portable Node.js binary.
    • Opens browser (xdg-open) or prints URL.
    • Handles graceful shutdown (traps SIGINT/SIGTERM to kill backend).

  2. scripts/setup.sh — Bash setup equivalent to setup.ps1.

    • Downloads portable Node.js Linux tarball with curl + progress bar.
    • Extracts with tar.
    • Detects GPU via sysfs PCI vendor IDs.
    • Downloads appropriate backends:
      • CPU + Vulkan for everyone (baseline).
      • ROCm if AMD GPU detected.
      • CUDA if NVIDIA GPU detected (optional, due to large download).
    • Downloads NVIDIA CUDA redist libraries if CUDA is selected.
    • Extracts all archives using tar / Node.js / Python fallback.
    • Renames binaries to predictable names.
    • Runs npm install and npm run build using portable npm.

  3. scripts/reset.sh — Bash reset equivalent to reset.ps1.

    • Deletes app/tools/, app/backend/, app/dist/, app/frontend/node_modules/ while preserving app/models/ and app/outputs/.

Modified Files

  1. scripts/serve.cjs — Enhance Linux support.

    • Add Linux backend paths: 
      linuxCpu:    path.join(ROOT, "app", "backend", "linux", "cpu",    "sd-cpu"),
linuxVulkan: path.join(ROOT, "app", "backend", "linux", "vulkan", "sd-vulkan"),
linuxRocm:   path.join(ROOT, "app", "backend", "linux", "rocm",   "sd-rocm"),
linuxCuda:   path.join(ROOT, "app", "backend", "linux", "cuda",   "sd-cuda"),
    • Add Linux GPU detection via sysfs (/sys/bus/pci/devices/*/vendor).
    • Update getBackendOptions(): For Linux, return cpu, vulkan, rocm (if binary exists), and cuda (if binary + libraries exist).
    • Update selectBackendPath(): Choose Linux backend based on resolved type; set LD_LIBRARY_PATH for CUDA/ROCm subprocesses so they find bundled .so files.
    • Update getHealth() / getSetupPaths(): Include Linux backend checks.
    • Update getGpuInfo() / hasNvidiaGpu(): Add Linux sysfs parsing.
    • CUDA VRAM polling: Keep existing nvidia-smi approach; on Linux it works if drivers are installed.

  2. README.md — Add Linux section with compatibility matrix, ./start.sh usage, and known limitations.

5. Download Sources

Component URL Pattern
Portable Node.js https://nodejs.org/dist/v22.12.0/node-v22.12.0-linux-x64.tar.xz
CPU Backend https://github.com/leejet/stable-diffusion.cpp/releases/download/master-XXX/sd-master-XXX-bin-Linux-Ubuntu-24.04-x86_64.zip
Vulkan Backend https://github.com/leejet/stable-diffusion.cpp/releases/download/master-XXX/sd-master-XXX-bin-Linux-Ubuntu-24.04-x86_64-vulkan.zip
ROCm Backend https://github.com/leejet/stable-diffusion.cpp/releases/download/master-XXX/sd-master-XXX-bin-Linux-Ubuntu-24.04-x86_64-rocm-7.13.0.zip
CUDA Binary (third-party) https://github.com/leaxer-ai/leaxer-stable-diffusion/releases/download/v0.1.0/sd-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-cuda
CUDA Server (third-party) https://github.com/leaxer-ai/leaxer-stable-diffusion/releases/download/v0.1.0/sd-server-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-cuda
CUDA Runtime (NVIDIA redist) https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/redist/cuda_cudart/linux-x86_64/cuda_cudart-linux-x86_64-12.X.YZ-archive.tar.xz
cuBLAS (NVIDIA redist) https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/redist/libcublas/linux-x86_64/libcublas-linux-x86_64-12.X.YZ-archive.tar.xz

6. Setup Modes

To respect users with limited bandwidth or no NVIDIA hardware, setup.sh should support two modes:

  1. Quick Setup (default) — Downloads CPU + Vulkan only.

    • Works on all Linux systems.
    • NVIDIA users get Vulkan acceleration (good, but not best).
    • ~120–150 MB total download.

  2. Maximum Performance Setup — Downloads CPU + Vulkan + ROCm + CUDA.

    • Best performance for each vendor.
    • ~1.5 GB total download (mostly ROCm + cuBLAS).
    • User can opt-in via ./start.sh --max-perf or ./scripts/setup.sh --max-perf.

7. Self-Contained Checklist

Host Dependency How We Eliminate It
Node.js installed globally Download portable node-v22.12.0-linux-x64.tar.xz into app/tools/node-linux/
npm installed globally Use portable npm from the tarball
unzip command Extract ZIPs using Node.js or Python zipfile
lspci / lshw Parse /sys/bus/pci/devices/*/vendor directly
C++ compiler / CUDA toolkit Use pre-built binaries only
System package manager (apt/yum) Never used
CUDA runtime libs Bundle NVIDIA redistributable .so files

One unavoidable host dependency remains: the NVIDIA kernel driver (libcuda.so.1) for CUDA mode. Without it, CUDA cannot run. The app will detect this and automatically fall back to Vulkan for NVIDIA.

8. Known Limitations

  1. Third-party CUDA binary: The Linux CUDA build comes from leaxer-ai/leaxer-stable-diffusion, which has only one release (v0.1.0) and may become stale. We should pin to a specific version and periodically evaluate alternatives.
  2. Large ROCm download: The official ROCm backend ZIP is ~1.2 GB, which is a significant one-time download.
  3. Large cuBLAS download: NVIDIA's redistributable cuBLAS package is ~400–500 MB.
  4. NVIDIA driver requirement for CUDA: libcuda.so.1 must be present on the host (provided by the NVIDIA proprietary driver). If missing, CUDA mode falls back to Vulkan.
  5. ROCm host driver requirement: ROCm requires a compatible AMD GPU and ROCm kernel driver. If unavailable, ROCm falls back to Vulkan.
  6. glibc compatibility: Official Linux binaries are built on Ubuntu 24.04. They may fail on very old distributions (e.g., CentOS 7, Ubuntu 18.04) due to glibc version mismatches.

9. Recommended Implementation Order

  1. Create start.sh, scripts/setup.sh, and scripts/reset.sh with CPU + Vulkan support first.
  2. Update scripts/serve.cjs with Linux paths, sysfs GPU detection, and backend selection.
  3. Add ROCm download path (behind --max-perf flag).
  4. Add CUDA download path using leaxer binary + NVIDIA redist libraries (behind --max-perf flag).
  5. Add fallback logic so that if ROCm/CUDA fails to initialize, the app automatically switches to Vulkan.
  6. Update README.md with Linux instructions and performance notes.
  7. Test on Linux machines with NVIDIA (CUDA/Vulkan), AMD (ROCm/Vulkan), Intel (Vulkan), and CPU-only configurations.
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