All xformers dependencies were built and installed successfully on a previous nixos-rebuild switch. According to nvidia-smi the legacy nvidia drivers are installed and working correctly, and my GPUs are recognized.
System Hardware Information:
- AMD FX-8320 Eight-Core Processor @3828.570 MHz & 2048 KB Cache.
- 32GB of System RAM.
- 2x NVIDIA Quadro K6000 GPUs w/12GB VRAM each.
- 248GB of swap distributed in multiple files across 2 different mechanical hard drives (to increase I/O bandwith).
NixOS Information:
# nix-info -m
- system: `“x86_64-linux”`
- host os: `Linux 6.12.59, NixOS, 25.11 (Xantusia), 25.11.1335.09eb77e94fa2`
- multi-user?: `yes`
- sandbox: `yes`
- version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.31.2`
- channels(root): `“nixos-25.11”`
- nixpkgs: `/nix/store/j4hbw1ws742nmsfhbd9r22k1qgivk7hc-nixos-25.11/nixos`
I have this line in my configuration.nix: nixpkgs.config.cudaSupport = true;
Here is a portion of my software.nix file including my declaration for xformers:
python313Packages.torch-bin
python313Packages.numpy
python313Packages.tensorflow
#python312Packages.xformers
(python313Packages.xformers.overrideAttrs (finalAttrs: previousAttrs: {
OMP_NUM_THREADS = 2;
MKL_NUM_THREADS = 2;
NUMEXPR_NUM_THREADS = 2;
PYTORCH_NUM_THREADS = 2;
}))
python312Packages.vllm
The number of threads for the xformers package was necessary as the build process was not respecting my limited system RAM and without constraining it manually, the build would end up hanging due to swap I/O bandwitdth limitations, with both swap disks running at 100% bandwidth utilization, and the CPU in a 98% iowait state across all 8 cores. As you will see from the build log below, manually constraining concurrent processes seems to have solved that issue, but now I am seeing a new issue.
The blockquote below is a portion of the build log. When it reaches the end of the blockquote the system is seeing lots of systemd.coredump and thousands of drkonqi-coredump-processor processes owned by root for about 32-39 hours. Thoses processes have since finished but the build hasn’t progressed. It is supposed to be building python312Packages.vllm next. The only processes still owned by nixbld* are 5 of something like /nix/store/path/bin/python3.13 -m pytest/ -k not (test_custom_linear_solve_aux) –numprocesses=4 -Wignore…. and thousands of the following /nix/store/path/bin/python3.13 -u -c import sys;exec(eval(sys.stid.readline())). However there is almost no CPU utilization, and almost no disk I/O bandwidth utilization. The system is basically idle at this point.
**Successfully built xformers-0.0.30-cp313-cp313-linux_x86_64.whl**
**Successfully built xformers-0.0.30-cp313-cp313-linux_x86_64.whl**
Finished creating a wheel...
Finished creating a wheel...
Finished executing pypaBuildPhase
Finished executing pypaBuildPhase
buildPhase completed in 10 hours 15 minutes 50 seconds
Running phase: pythonRuntimeDepsCheckHook
Executing pythonRuntimeDepsCheck
Checking runtime dependencies for xformers-0.0.30-cp313-cp313-linux_x86_64.whl
buildPhase completed in 10 hours 15 minutes 50 seconds
Running phase: pythonRuntimeDepsCheckHook
Executing pythonRuntimeDepsCheck
Checking runtime dependencies for xformers-0.0.30-cp313-cp313-linux_x86_64.whl
Finished executing pythonRuntimeDepsCheck
Finished executing pythonRuntimeDepsCheck
pythonRuntimeDepsCheckHook completed in 33 seconds
Running phase: installPhase
Executing pypaInstallPhase
pythonRuntimeDepsCheckHook completed in 33 seconds
Running phase: installPhase
Executing pypaInstallPhase
Successfully installed xformers-0.0.30-cp313-cp313-linux_x86_64.whl
Finished executing pypaInstallPhase
Running phase: pythonOutputDistPhase
Executing pythonOutputDistPhase
Successfully installed xformers-0.0.30-cp313-cp313-linux_x86_64.whl
Finished executing pypaInstallPhase
Running phase: pythonOutputDistPhase
Executing pythonOutputDistPhase
Finished executing pythonOutputDistPhase
Running phase: fixupPhase
Finished executing pythonOutputDistPhase
Running phase: fixupPhase
shrinking RPATHs of ELF executables and libraries in /nix/store/3fi419x969mfzr2vpzrdsljj9fal9c8p-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30
shrinking RPATHs of ELF executables and libraries in /nix/store/cyfwvwnpr2x16w90crsh2kk7qm259v1a-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30
shrinking /nix/store/3fi419x969mfzr2vpzrdsljj9fal9c8p-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30/lib/python3.13/site-packages/xformers/\_C_flashattention3.so
shrinking /nix/store/cyfwvwnpr2x16w90crsh2kk7qm259v1a-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30/lib/python3.13/site-packages/xformers/\_C_flashattention3.so
shrinking /nix/store/3fi419x969mfzr2vpzrdsljj9fal9c8p-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30/lib/python3.13/site-packages/xformers/\_C.so
shrinking /nix/store/cyfwvwnpr2x16w90crsh2kk7qm259v1a-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30/lib/python3.13/site-packages/xformers/\_C.so
checking for references to /build/ in /nix/store/3fi419x969mfzr2vpzrdsljj9fal9c8p-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30...
patching script interpreter paths in /nix/store/3fi419x969mfzr2vpzrdsljj9fal9c8p-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30
checking for references to /build/ in /nix/store/cyfwvwnpr2x16w90crsh2kk7qm259v1a-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30...
stripping (with command strip and flags -S -p) in /nix/store/3fi419x969mfzr2vpzrdsljj9fal9c8p-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30/lib
patching script interpreter paths in /nix/store/cyfwvwnpr2x16w90crsh2kk7qm259v1a-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30
stripping (with command strip and flags -S -p) in /nix/store/cyfwvwnpr2x16w90crsh2kk7qm259v1a-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30/lib
shrinking RPATHs of ELF executables and libraries in /nix/store/5b89m01jc9d4hj0wl2jj2l1n1xna40dg-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30-dist
checking for references to /build/ in /nix/store/5b89m01jc9d4hj0wl2jj2l1n1xna40dg-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30-dist...
patching script interpreter paths in /nix/store/5b89m01jc9d4hj0wl2jj2l1n1xna40dg-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30-dist
shrinking RPATHs of ELF executables and libraries in /nix/store/qf92qylwngva6yj8f6vsvi7xcv6mm87x-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30-dist
checking for references to /build/ in /nix/store/qf92qylwngva6yj8f6vsvi7xcv6mm87x-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30-dist...
patching script interpreter paths in /nix/store/qf92qylwngva6yj8f6vsvi7xcv6mm87x-python3.13-xformers-0.0.30-dist
Executing pythonRemoveTestsDir
Executing pythonRemoveTestsDir
Finished executing pythonRemoveTestsDir
Finished executing pythonRemoveTestsDir
Running phase: pythonCatchConflictsPhase
Running phase: pythonCatchConflictsPhase
Running phase: pythonRemoveBinBytecodePhase
Running phase: pythonRemoveBinBytecodePhase
Running phase: pythonImportsCheckPhase
Running phase: pythonImportsCheckPhase
Executing pythonImportsCheckPhase
Check whether the following modules can be imported: xformers
Executing pythonImportsCheckPhase
Check whether the following modules can be imported: xformers
pythonImportsCheckPhase completed in 8 minutes 6 seconds
pythonImportsCheckPhase completed in 8 minutes 6 seconds
Is this still a help topic or should I submit a package build issue to GitHub? I should probably include some of the coredump info, but I am not sure how to do that. Any other information I should provide? Should I let it keep running? Should I pkill -u nixbld* && killall nixos-rebuild and then try nixos-rebuild switch again (since it seems xformers may have been built already)? Should I run tests to verify that xformers is actually working before trying to build vLLM again?