TinyGPU Setup on macOS for eGPU

tinygpu-setup.md

TinyGPU Setup on macOS

Prerequisites

• Python >= 3.11 (tinygrad 0.12.0 requires it)
• uv (or pip)
• numpy

1. Clone tinygrad and install it

git clone https://github.com/tinygrad/tinygrad.git
cd tinygrad
uv pip install --system -e .

2. Run the setup script

Override DEBUG if it is set to a non-integer in your env.

Run from outside the tinygrad repo directory to avoid circular import errors (tinygrad/ in CWD shadows the installed package).

export DEBUG=0
cd /tmp
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tinygrad/tinygrad/master/extra/setup_tinygpu_osx.sh | sh

The script installs the TinyGPU driver extension (org.tinygrad.tinygpu.driver2).

On first AMD device use, tinygrad downloads kernel headers and firmware blobs from linux-kernel, linux-firmware, and ROCm repos automatically.

3. Approve the driver extension

• System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions > Driver Extensions > toggle TinyGPU ON
• Or: System Settings > Privacy & Security — allow the TinyGPU extension

4. Connect the GPU and verify

cd /tmp
python3 -c 'from tinygrad import Tensor; print(Tensor([1,2,3]).to("AMD").numpy())'
# Expected: [1 2 3]

Run tinygrad scripts from outside the tinygrad repo directory to avoid circular imports.