From 6ad0889c8ae1b74df02d0a895d1de4d364445927 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Awni Hannun <awni@apple.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2025 15:33:05 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] default install cuda on linux (#2462)

---
 README.md            | 11 +++--------
 docs/src/install.rst |  4 ++--
 setup.py             | 12 +++++++-----
 3 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 87dcfd18e6..070f00d019 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -75,16 +75,11 @@ macOS, run:
 pip install mlx
 ```
 
-To install the CUDA backend on Linux, run:
+On Linux, the same command (``pip install mlx``) will install the CUDA backend
+by default. To install a CPU-only Linux package, run:
 
 ```bash
-pip install "mlx[cuda]"
-```
-
-To install a CPU-only Linux package, run:
-
-```bash
-pip install "mlx[cpu]"
+pip install mlx[cpu]
 ```
 
 Checkout the
diff --git a/docs/src/install.rst b/docs/src/install.rst
index 268141567e..7d9f6d90de 100644
--- a/docs/src/install.rst
+++ b/docs/src/install.rst
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ MLX has a CUDA backend which you can install with:
 
 .. code-block:: shell
 
-    pip install "mlx[cuda]"
+    pip install mlx
 
 To install the CUDA package from PyPi your system must meet the following
 requirements:
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ For a CPU-only version of MLX that runs on Linux use:
 
 .. code-block:: shell
 
-    pip install "mlx[cpu]"
+    pip install mlx[cpu]
 
 To install the CPU-only package from PyPi your system must meet the following
 requirements:
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index d15f36b2b7..76d7cf6f95 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -274,11 +274,13 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":
     #  - Package name is back-end specific, e.g mlx-metal
     if build_stage != 2:
         if build_stage == 1:
-            install_requires.append(
-                f'mlx-metal=={version}; platform_system == "Darwin"'
-            )
-            extras["cuda"] = [f'mlx-cuda=={version}; platform_system == "Linux"']
-            extras["cpu"] = [f'mlx-cpu=={version}; platform_system == "Linux"']
+            install_requires += [
+                f'mlx-metal=={version}; platform_system == "Darwin"',
+                f'mlx-cuda=={version}; extra != "cpu" and platform_system == "linux"',
+            ]
+            extras["cpu"] = [
+                f'mlx-cpu=={version}; extra == "cpu" and platform_system == "linux"'
+            ]
 
         _setup(
             name="mlx",