Prerequisites

Start with the RAPIDS install guide for your Linux distribution. It owns NVIDIA driver, CUDA toolkit, GPU support, host-compiler, CMake, and Ninja compatibility. The upstream dependency manifests are cuDF, cuVS, and cuGraph. The exact native sources in this checkout are the authority for this build; their dependencies.yaml and CMakeLists.txt files take precedence if they differ from those upstream references.

This page covers only what connects that upstream environment to DataFusion Nexus.

Native build environment

The recursive checkout builds its pinned libcudf, libcuvs, and libcugraph sources locally. Before continuing, use the RAPIDS guidance to install a compatible NVIDIA driver, CUDA toolkit, host compiler, CMake, and Ninja. nvcc must be available from the CUDA installation you intend to use.

Install the checkout-specific host tools:

sudo apt-get install -y build-essential git clang mold

The root .cargo/config.toml selects clang and mold for normal source builds. If the pinned native sources require a compiler that is not your distribution default, install that compiler as directed by their checked-out dependency files, then set it in the build shell.

Native binaries target the build GPU by default. When they must run on a different GPU, build the required architectures explicitly as described in Building from Source.

Rust toolchain and test runner

Install Rust with the official Rustup instructions. The workspace declares its MSRV in Cargo.toml; nightly is needed only for formatting. Then install the repository's canonical test runner:

rustup toolchain install nightly
cargo install --locked --version 0.9.140 cargo-nextest
cargo install --locked --version 0.6.45 cargo-hack

Optional fixture dependency

Some components/cudf Parquet fixture tests use Python with PyArrow. It is not needed to build or link the native libraries or Rust workspace. Install PyArrow from its official installation guide only when running that component's full fixture suite.

Continue with Building from Source.