[BUG] cudf package not compatible with cuda 10 setup

[henningpeters]

Describe the bug
Installing and importing the cudf package on a CUDA 10 system results in following error:

(xxy) henning@instance-4:~$ python -c "import cudf"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/henning/xxy/lib/python3.6/site-packages/cudf/__init__.py", line 2, in <module>
    from cudf import dataframe
  File "/home/henning/xxy/lib/python3.6/site-packages/cudf/dataframe/__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
    from cudf.dataframe import (buffer, dataframe, series,
  File "/home/henning/xxy/lib/python3.6/site-packages/cudf/dataframe/buffer.py", line 3, in <module>
    from librmm_cffi import librmm as rmm
  File "/home/henning/xxy/lib/python3.6/site-packages/librmm_cffi/__init__.py", line 50, in <module>
    librmm_api = ffi.dlopen(_get_lib_name())
OSError: cannot load library '/home/henning/xxy/lib/python3.6/site-packages/librmm.so': libcudart.so.9.2: cannot open 
shared object file: No such file or directory

It's not clear to the user that the cudf package is tied to a specific CUDA version. The docs btw don't list the cudf package, but only cudf-cuda** packages.

Steps/Code to reproduce bug

pip install cudf
python -c "import cudf"

Expected behavior
Just an import

Environment details (please complete the following information):

• Environment location: Cloud(GCP)
• Method of cuDF install: pip

Additional context
Installed latest CUDA (10.0.130-1) and driver version (410.79)

[kkraus14]

You need to use pip install cudf-cuda100

[kkraus14]

Due to the nature of the compiled code underneath it's both difficult and troublesome to create a single install for multiple CUDA versions.

[henningpeters]

I perfectly understand the technical problem, but this might still be a cause for frustration.

[henningpeters]

Why then having the package in the first place?

[kkraus14]

I perfectly understand the technical problem, but this might still be a cause for frustration.

Agreed, this isn't the experience we want for an end user installing the software but is a necessary evil for now. We'll continue exploring a better way to handle this moving forward.

[henningpeters]

Another option would be to fail gracefully

[kkraus14]

Another option would be to fail gracefully

Agreed. I've created a feature request issue for this: #870. Did using pip install cudf-cuda100 work for you?

[henningpeters]

Yep, see #839

[kkraus14]

Awesome, going to close this issue as I've created #870 to track better raising an error for this situation.