Install TensorFlow on Ubuntu 22.04

This tutorial will show you how to install TensorFlow on Ubuntu 22.04. According to their site, TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. It has a comprehensive, flexible ecosystem of tools, libraries and community resources that lets researchers push the state-of-the-art in ML and developers easily build and deploy ML powered applications.

Install TensorFlow on Ubuntu 22.04

There are various ways in which TensorFlow can be installed on Ubuntu 22.04;

Install using Python PIP
Install via Docker
Build and install from the source.

We will only discuss the PIP installation method in this guide. For other methods refer to the documentation.

Before you can proceed with installation, be sure to check on hardware, system and software requirements.

Install TensorFlow using Python PIP

To install TensorFlow using Python PIP;

Install Python 3.x

TensorFlow requires Python 3.7-3.10. Fortunately, Ubuntu 22.04 ships with Python 3.10;

python3 -V

Sample output;

Python 3.10.4

Install PIP on Ubuntu 22.04

pip version 19.0 or higher is required. You can install PIP on Ubuntu 22.04 using the command below;

sudo apt install python3-pip

Install Required Python Libraries and Virtual Environment

Run the command below to install required Python libraries and virtual environment.

sudo apt install python3-{venv,dev}

Create TensorFlow Virtual Environment

Next, run the command below to install TensorFlow;

mkdir ~/tensorflow && cd ~/tensorflow

Create virtual environment, in this case we called our virtual environment, tensorflow_venv. You can use any name!

python3 -m venv tensorflow_venv

Activate the virtual environment created;

source ./tensorflow_venv/bin/activate

You will see the shell prompt change;

(tensorflow_venv) kifarunix@jellyfish:~/tensorflow$

Upgrade PIP;

pip install --upgrade pip

Verify installed PIP version;

pip3 --version

pip 22.1.1 from /home/kifarunix/tensorflow/tensorflow_venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip (python 3.10)

Install TensorFlow

Within the virtual environment, run the command below to install TensorFlow using PIP.

pip install --upgrade tensorflow

Sample installation output;


Collecting tensorflow
  Downloading tensorflow-2.9.1-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (511.7 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 511.7/511.7 MB ? eta 0:00:00
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=4, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'ReadTimeoutError("HTTPSConnectionPool(host='pypi.org', port=443): Read timed out. (read timeout=15)")': /simple/flatbuffers/
Collecting flatbuffers<2,>=1.12
  Downloading flatbuffers-1.12-py2.py3-none-any.whl (15 kB)
Collecting libclang>=13.0.0
  Downloading libclang-14.0.1-py2.py3-none-manylinux1_x86_64.whl (14.5 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 14.5/14.5 MB 2.0 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting protobuf<3.20,>=3.9.2
  Downloading protobuf-3.19.4-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (1.1 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1.1/1.1 MB 1.6 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting keras<2.10.0,>=2.9.0rc0
  Downloading keras-2.9.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (1.6 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1.6/1.6 MB 1.7 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting packaging
  Downloading packaging-21.3-py3-none-any.whl (40 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 40.8/40.8 kB 234.4 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting six>=1.12.0
  Downloading six-1.16.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (11 kB)
Requirement already satisfied: setuptools in ./tensorflow_venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages (from tensorflow) (59.6.0)
Collecting tensorflow-estimator<2.10.0,>=2.9.0rc0
  Downloading tensorflow_estimator-2.9.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (438 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 438.7/438.7 kB 1.3 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting typing-extensions>=3.6.6
  Downloading typing_extensions-4.2.0-py3-none-any.whl (24 kB)
Collecting termcolor>=1.1.0
  Downloading termcolor-1.1.0.tar.gz (3.9 kB)
  Preparing metadata (setup.py) ... done
Collecting absl-py>=1.0.0
  Downloading absl_py-1.0.0-py3-none-any.whl (126 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 126.7/126.7 kB 785.5 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting tensorboard<2.10,>=2.9
  Downloading tensorboard-2.9.0-py3-none-any.whl (5.8 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 5.8/5.8 MB 2.1 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting tensorflow-io-gcs-filesystem>=0.23.1
  Downloading tensorflow_io_gcs_filesystem-0.26.0-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_12_x86_64.manylinux2010_x86_64.whl (2.4 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 2.4/2.4 MB 2.2 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting h5py>=2.9.0
  Downloading h5py-3.7.0-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_12_x86_64.manylinux2010_x86_64.whl (4.5 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 4.5/4.5 MB 2.1 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting google-pasta>=0.1.1
  Downloading google_pasta-0.2.0-py3-none-any.whl (57 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 57.5/57.5 kB 381.0 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting numpy>=1.20
  Downloading numpy-1.22.4-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (16.8 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 16.8/16.8 MB 2.0 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting astunparse>=1.6.0
  Downloading astunparse-1.6.3-py2.py3-none-any.whl (12 kB)
Collecting keras-preprocessing>=1.1.1
  Downloading Keras_Preprocessing-1.1.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl (42 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 42.6/42.6 kB 244.3 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting gast<=0.4.0,>=0.2.1
  Downloading gast-0.4.0-py3-none-any.whl (9.8 kB)
Collecting opt-einsum>=2.3.2
  Downloading opt_einsum-3.3.0-py3-none-any.whl (65 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 65.5/65.5 kB 435.2 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting wrapt>=1.11.0
  Downloading wrapt-1.14.1-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_5_x86_64.manylinux1_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (77 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 77.9/77.9 kB 376.1 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting grpcio<2.0,>=1.24.3
  Downloading grpcio-1.46.3-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (4.4 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 4.4/4.4 MB 2.3 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting wheel<1.0,>=0.23.0
  Downloading wheel-0.37.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (35 kB)
Collecting requests<3,>=2.21.0
  Downloading requests-2.27.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (63 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 63.1/63.1 kB 413.8 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting google-auth-oauthlib<0.5,>=0.4.1
  Downloading google_auth_oauthlib-0.4.6-py2.py3-none-any.whl (18 kB)
Collecting google-auth<3,>=1.6.3
  Downloading google_auth-2.6.6-py2.py3-none-any.whl (156 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 156.7/156.7 kB 887.7 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting tensorboard-plugin-wit>=1.6.0
  Downloading tensorboard_plugin_wit-1.8.1-py3-none-any.whl (781 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 781.3/781.3 kB 1.7 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting markdown>=2.6.8
  Downloading Markdown-3.3.7-py3-none-any.whl (97 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 97.8/97.8 kB 675.6 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting tensorboard-data-server<0.7.0,>=0.6.0
  Downloading tensorboard_data_server-0.6.1-py3-none-manylinux2010_x86_64.whl (4.9 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 4.9/4.9 MB 2.6 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting werkzeug>=1.0.1
  Downloading Werkzeug-2.1.2-py3-none-any.whl (224 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 224.9/224.9 kB 1.0 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting pyparsing!=3.0.5,>=2.0.2
  Downloading pyparsing-3.0.9-py3-none-any.whl (98 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 98.3/98.3 kB 655.9 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting rsa<5,>=3.1.4
  Downloading rsa-4.8-py3-none-any.whl (39 kB)
Collecting cachetools<6.0,>=2.0.0
  Downloading cachetools-5.1.0-py3-none-any.whl (9.2 kB)
Collecting pyasn1-modules>=0.2.1
  Downloading pyasn1_modules-0.2.8-py2.py3-none-any.whl (155 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 155.3/155.3 kB 962.0 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting requests-oauthlib>=0.7.0
  Downloading requests_oauthlib-1.3.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (23 kB)
Collecting charset-normalizer~=2.0.0
  Downloading charset_normalizer-2.0.12-py3-none-any.whl (39 kB)
Collecting idna<4,>=2.5
  Downloading idna-3.3-py3-none-any.whl (61 kB)
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Collecting urllib3<1.27,>=1.21.1
  Downloading urllib3-1.26.9-py2.py3-none-any.whl (138 kB)
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Collecting certifi>=2017.4.17
  Downloading certifi-2022.5.18.1-py3-none-any.whl (155 kB)
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Collecting pyasn1<0.5.0,>=0.4.6
  Downloading pyasn1-0.4.8-py2.py3-none-any.whl (77 kB)
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Collecting oauthlib>=3.0.0
  Downloading oauthlib-3.2.0-py3-none-any.whl (151 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 151.5/151.5 kB 929.3 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Using legacy 'setup.py install' for termcolor, since package 'wheel' is not installed.
Installing collected packages: termcolor, tensorboard-plugin-wit, pyasn1, libclang, keras, flatbuffers, wrapt, wheel, werkzeug, urllib3, typing-extensions, tensorflow-io-gcs-filesystem, tensorflow-estimator, tensorboard-data-server, six, rsa, pyparsing, pyasn1-modules, protobuf, oauthlib, numpy, markdown, idna, gast, charset-normalizer, certifi, cachetools, requests, packaging, opt-einsum, keras-preprocessing, h5py, grpcio, google-pasta, google-auth, astunparse, absl-py, requests-oauthlib, google-auth-oauthlib, tensorboard, tensorflow
  Running setup.py install for termcolor ... done
Successfully installed absl-py-1.0.0 astunparse-1.6.3 cachetools-5.1.0 certifi-2022.5.18.1 charset-normalizer-2.0.12 flatbuffers-1.12 gast-0.4.0 google-auth-2.6.6 google-auth-oauthlib-0.4.6 google-pasta-0.2.0 grpcio-1.46.3 h5py-3.7.0 idna-3.3 keras-2.9.0 keras-preprocessing-1.1.2 libclang-14.0.1 markdown-3.3.7 numpy-1.22.4 oauthlib-3.2.0 opt-einsum-3.3.0 packaging-21.3 protobuf-3.19.4 pyasn1-0.4.8 pyasn1-modules-0.2.8 pyparsing-3.0.9 requests-2.27.1 requests-oauthlib-1.3.1 rsa-4.8 six-1.16.0 tensorboard-2.9.0 tensorboard-data-server-0.6.1 tensorboard-plugin-wit-1.8.1 tensorflow-2.9.1 tensorflow-estimator-2.9.0 tensorflow-io-gcs-filesystem-0.26.0 termcolor-1.1.0 typing-extensions-4.2.0 urllib3-1.26.9 werkzeug-2.1.2 wheel-0.37.1 wrapt-1.14.1

Check installed version of TensorFlow;

python3 -c 'import tensorflow as tf;print(tf.version.VERSION)'

Sample output;

2.9.1

You can now use TensorFlow. Refer to the documentation for more information.

You can deactivate the virtual environment using the command;

deactivate

Install TensorFlow on Ubuntu 22.04