Are there any AI assistants which come bundled with one of the popular distros (Debian-like, Arch, …)?<p>Or anything which is free (at least as in beer) and readily bundled in distro-specific installation packages?
NixOS has packages for llama-cpp and ollama: <a href="https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=23.11&from=0&size=50&sort=relevance&type=packages&query=llama" rel="nofollow">https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=23.11&from=0&size=...</a><p>Edit: And Arch packages ollama officially - <a href="https://archlinux.org/packages/?sort=&q=llama&maintainer=&flagged=" rel="nofollow">https://archlinux.org/packages/?sort=&q=llama&maintainer=&fl...</a>
- and a few things in the AUR - <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages?O=0&K=llama" rel="nofollow">https://aur.archlinux.org/packages?O=0&K=llama</a>
One thing about LLMs is that they are 6GB+ (and much larger for "smart" ones) just sitting in the background. They suck power and produce heat like nothing else, and they are finicky, especially at smaller sizes.<p>Running one as a background desktop assistant is whole different animal than calling a Microsoft API.
None. Microsoft has Copilot in preview mode in Windows and it's not very integrated apart from a chat window. I doubt GNOME/KDE will be able to dedicate enough resources to adding an assistant that is well integrated with the desktop environment any time soon.<p>A search in Fedora yields a single GSoC project[0] limited in scope to NetworkManager and it's not clear if anyone actually is working on that.<p>If the use case you're interested in is actually having the LLM doing things for you in SaaS applications, that wouldn't need deep integration but, considering Google is yet to deliver a Google Drive client for Linux, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a native Linux AI-assisted assistant.<p>Your best option right now is to interface with the assistants through their web interface and hope they have plugins/extensions to interact with things you want.<p>Other than that, some people have built prototypes running LLMs locally that talk to things like Home Assistant. But again, no deep desktop integration.<p>0 - <a href="https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/mentored-projects/gsoc/2024/ideas/" rel="nofollow">https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/mentored-projects/gsoc/...</a>
Not as far as I know, but llamafiles are almost easier to get running than native packages.<p><a href="https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile">https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile</a>
Unrelated, but is there something like Bonzi Buddy for linux? Not the spyware part, just the friendly looking clippy-esque character that can tell you about your new e-mails, weather, or whatever? I kind of wish I had something like that.
Not bundled in a distro-specific way, but ollama fairly straightforward to install and use:<p><a href="https://github.com/ollama/ollama/blob/main/docs/linux.md">https://github.com/ollama/ollama/blob/main/docs/linux.md</a>
Shameless plug: I’m writing one for Ubuntu Touch and I’m planning on adding a desktop version as well.<p>My frontend side is very weak so it’s going to be very barebones but contributions are welcome once it’s stable:<p><a href="https://github.com/gessha/llmtest">https://github.com/gessha/llmtest</a>
Why? They take lots of space and lots of computing power. Linux has always been about lightweight and a bundle only containing essential things. You can always install one if you need it but as it stands right now LLMs are not useful enough to warrant their bundling in a distro. Just my 2 cents
There is one you can install via Flatpak. That will work in most distros.<p><a href="https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.Bavarder.Bavarder" rel="nofollow">https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.Bavarder.Bavarder</a>
Wouldn't it be ironic if chatgpt assistant on linux gives linux end-user desktop dominance? lol... Microsoft would be like, "you fools, you've doomed us all"
Perhaps this: <a href="https://github.com/yusufcanb/tlm">https://github.com/yusufcanb/tlm</a>?<p>it is not distro bundled (yet), but I have it running on my Fedora Linux 39 running on a NUC with 16GB of RAM. Performance is good enough for me.
Check out <a href="https://gitlab.com/mdev1974008/doda" rel="nofollow">https://gitlab.com/mdev1974008/doda</a> - Pure terminal UI. Its just python.
Linux options (possibly not bundled) from another thread<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39533494">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39533494</a>