Software Guides
29 InsiderLLM guides in Software — practical, tested walkthroughs for running AI locally, sorted by most recently updated.
- Every SSD-Streaming MoE Engine: What's Real, What's Dead Eight engines that stream MoE experts from disk appeared in four months. Three have no license file at all. Here's the verified state of each.
- Best Way to Get 2x Token Output on RTX 3090: Qwen 3.6 + DFlash Luce DFlash + DDTree pushes Qwen 3.6-27B Q4_K_M from 35 tok/s to 69 tok/s on a single RTX 3090. Real benchmarks, setup, and honest limits.
- How to Get 2.5x Faster Qwen on RTX 3090 (Free) I built DFlash on my RTX 3090 and ran the full bench. Real 2.5x speedup on Qwen 3.5 and 3.6 — below the 3.43x README claim, still huge. Here's how.
- How to Update Models in Ollama — Keep Your Local LLMs Current Ollama doesn't auto-update models. Run ollama pull model:tag to grab the latest version — only changed layers download. Use ollama show to check what you have, and a simple loop to update everything at once.
- WSL2 + Ollama on Windows: Complete Setup Guide (GPU Passthrough Included) Install Ollama in WSL2 with full GPU acceleration in 20 minutes. GPU passthrough, Open WebUI, Docker Compose, VPN fixes, and the gotchas that will waste your afternoon.
- Local LLMs vs ChatGPT: An Honest Comparison ChatGPT has web search, voice mode, and GPT-5.2. Local LLMs have privacy, no subscriptions, and no rate limits. Here's when each one wins, what the cost math actually looks like, and why most power users run both.
- Best New Ollama 0.17 Features: ollama launch, MLX, and OpenClaw Support Everything new in Ollama 0.16 through 0.17.7: ollama launch for coding tools, native MLX on Apple Silicon, OpenClaw integration, web search API, and image generation. Updated March 2026.
- Ollama on Mac: Setup and Optimization Guide (2026) Install Ollama on Apple Silicon, verify Metal GPU is active, and tune it for your Mac's RAM. Config for M1 through M4 Ultra with model picks per memory tier.
- WSL2 Local AI on Windows: GPU Passthrough, Fixed (2026) Install WSL2, configure GPU passthrough, set up Ollama and llama.cpp with CUDA, and optimize memory for LLM inference. Step-by-step for Windows 11.
- Home Assistant Voice Control, No Cloud or Alexa (2026) Fully local voice control with Home Assistant, Ollama, Whisper, and Piper — no Alexa, no cloud, no subscriptions. Wyoming pipeline, model picks, hardware.
- LM Studio Tips & Tricks: Faster + Features You Miss (2026) Run local LLMs faster in LM Studio with speculative decoding and MLX, plus the API server, GPU offload, and power-user features most people never touch.
- Text Generation WebUI Setup Guide (2026) Install oobabooga's TextGen (formerly text-generation-webui), load GGUF/EXL2/EXL3 models, and configure GPU offloading. Now with vision, tool-calling, and an Anthropic-compatible API. Covers the settings most guides skip.
- llama.cpp vs Ollama vs vLLM: One User vs Many (2026) Single-user, the three are closer than benchmark posts admit. Concurrent, vLLM pulls 10-20x ahead. Decision tree, the vLLM VRAM gotcha, mid-2026 versions.
- How to Fix Slow Qwen 3.6 27B on RTX 3090 (10-80 tok/s) Qwen 3.6-27B at 12 tok/s on a 3090 when others report 35? The 8-step diagnostic checklist for offload, quants, templates, power limits, and backend choice.
- AnythingLLM Setup Guide: Chat With Your Documents Locally Upload PDFs, paste URLs, and chat with your files — no coding, no cloud. AnythingLLM connects to Ollama in 5 minutes with point-and-click RAG on 54K+ GitHub stars.
- Open WebUI Setup Guide: ChatGPT UI for Local AI 1 Docker command gives you a ChatGPT-like interface for any Ollama model. 120K+ GitHub stars, built-in RAG, voice chat, and multi-model switching—all running locally.
- Best Docker Setup for Local AI: Ollama + Open WebUI (2026) Five copy-paste Docker compose recipes for Ollama 0.24 + Open WebUI: NVIDIA Blackwell, AMD ROCm, multi-GPU, and CPU. Plus the Apple Silicon catch most guides skip.
- Best Ways to Manage Multiple Ollama Models: 2026 Workflows Manage multiple Ollama models in 2026: disk cleanup, switching, tagging. Qwen 3.6, Gemma 4, DeepSeek V4 (cloud-only) — practical workflows.
- FP4 Just Landed in llama.cpp: NVFP4 vs MXFP4 Explained (2026) NVFP4 in llama.cpp, MXFP4 in ik_llama.cpp. The first practical FP4 quantization for the GGUF ecosystem — what works, what doesn't, and what to test.
- Run Your First Local LLM in 15 Minutes Install Ollama, pull a model, and chat with AI offline—all in 15 minutes. Works on any Mac, Windows, or Linux machine with 8GB RAM. No accounts, no API keys, no fees.
- Is LM Studio Infected? How to Check Your Install (March 2026) Reports of possible malware in LM Studio are circulating on Reddit. Here's what we know, how to verify your installation, and what to do if you're affected.
- Unsloth Studio Setup Guide: Fine-Tune Qwen 3.5 on Your GPU (Step by Step) How to install Unsloth Studio, run GGUF models locally, and fine-tune Qwen 3.5 — all in one open-source web UI. Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
- Ollama vs LM Studio: Speed, Setup, and Verdict Ollama gives you a CLI with 100+ models and an OpenAI-compatible API. LM Studio gives you a visual GUI with one-click downloads. Most power users run both—here's when to use each.
- Best LLM Speed Trick: ExLlamaV2 vs llama.cpp Benchmarks (50-85% Faster) Head-to-head speed benchmarks on RTX 3090 and 4090. ExLlamaV2 generates tokens 50-85% faster than llama.cpp on NVIDIA GPUs. Full comparison with setup guides for both.
- LM Studio vs llama.cpp: Why Your Model Runs Slower in the GUI LM Studio uses llama.cpp under the hood but often runs 30-50% slower. Bundled runtime lag, UI overhead, and default settings explain the gap. How to benchmark it yourself and when the convenience is worth it.
- LM Studio vs Ollama on Mac: Which Should You Use? LM Studio's MLX backend is 20-30% faster and uses half the memory. Ollama is lighter, always-on, and better for APIs. Mac-specific benchmarks and when to use each.
- llama.cpp Just Got a New Home: What the Hugging Face Acquisition Means for Local AI ggml.ai — the team behind llama.cpp — is joining Hugging Face. Open source stays open, Georgi keeps the wheel. What changed, what didn't, and what to watch.
- Run Qwen2.5-VL Vision in LM Studio (Setup) Get Qwen2.5-VL running in LM Studio in 5 minutes. Covers the mmproj file most people miss, correct download links, and how to analyze images and PDFs locally.
- Local LLMs vs Claude: When Each Actually Wins Qwen 3 32B matches Claude on daily tasks at zero marginal cost. Claude still wins on 200K-token documents and multi-step debugging. Benchmarks, pricing, and when to use each.