“Dual Machine AI Environment: Python + R on Debian (Complete Guide)”

Full AI/ML Dual Machine Setup Guide (Debian 13)

1. System Preparation (Do on Both Machines)

Bash

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y build-essential curl wget git ca-certificates \
    firmware-linux firmware-linux-nonfree cmake pandoc libuv1-dev \
    libx11-dev libssl-dev libxml2-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev

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2. Python AI Environment (ai-env) — Recommended Fast Method

Bash

# Update conda
conda update -n base -c conda-forge conda -y

# Install mamba (much faster)
conda install -c conda-forge mamba -y

# Create environment
mamba create -n ai-env python=3.12 -y
mamba activate ai-env

# Install packages (in stages)
mamba install -c conda-forge numpy pandas scikit-learn matplotlib seaborn jupyterlab ipykernel -y

mamba install pytorch torchvision torchaudio cpuonly -c pytorch -y

mamba install -c conda-forge transformers huggingface_hub sentence-transformers tokenizers bitsandbytes safetensors -y

mamba install -c conda-forge datasets accelerate evaluate peft tqdm pillow -y

mamba install -c conda-forge diffusers gradio langchain langchain-community trl -y

Test:

Bash

python -c "
import torch, transformers, gradio
print('PyTorch:', torch.__version__)
print('Transformers:', transformers.__version__)
print('Gradio:', gradio.__version__)
print('✅ Python AI Environment Ready!')
"

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3. R + RStudio

Bash

# Install R (if not already done)
sudo apt install -y r-base r-base-dev

# Install RStudio
cd ~/Downloads
wget https://download1.rstudio.org/electron/jammy/amd64/rstudio-2026.05.0-218-amd64.deb
sudo apt install -y ./rstudio-*.deb

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4. R Packages (in RStudio Console)

R

install.packages("pak", repos = "https://r-lib.github.io/p/pak/stable/")

pak::pak(c("reticulate", "tidyverse", "xgboost", "caret", "randomForest", 
           "glmnet", "ranger", "lightgbm"))

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5. Connect R ↔ Python (reticulate)

In RStudio Console:

R

library(reticulate)
use_condaenv("ai-env", conda = "~/miniforge3/bin/conda")

py_config()

# Test
py_run_string("import torch; print('PyTorch from R:', torch.__version__)")

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6. Quarto (for reports & dashboards)

Bash

cd ~/Downloads
wget https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/releases/download/v1.6.42/quarto-1.6.42-linux-amd64.deb
sudo apt install -y ./quarto-1.6.42-linux-amd64.deb
quarto --version

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Final Test (in RStudio)

R

library(tidyverse)
library(reticulate)
use_condaenv("ai-env")

tidyverse_logo()

py_run_string("import torch; print('Success! PyTorch version:', torch.__version__)")