Hey there! Today, I'm thrilled to talk about how to easily set up an extremely capable, locally running, fully retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capable LLM on your laptop or desktop. Whether you have a powerful GPU or are just working with a CPU, this guide will help you get started with two simple, single-click installable applications: LM Studio and Anything LLM Desktop.
Tools You'll Need
LM Studio: This versatile tool lets you explore and run various LLMs locally on your machine.
Anything LLM: A desktop application that enhances LM Studio’s capabilities, providing a comprehensive suite for interacting with documents, websites, and more.
Both tools LM Studio and Anything LLM are open-source, enabling you to freely use and even contribute to their development.
Setting Up LM Studio
Step 1: Download and Install
First, download LM Studio for your operating system. Once the download is complete, install it following the usual steps.
Step 2: Exploring Models
After installation, open LM Studio. You’ll land on an exploration page showcasing various popular models. For this tutorial, let’s download the Mistal 7B Instruct model, a 4-bit quantized version.
Downloading models can be time-consuming, so start this process early. Once downloaded, you can find your models under the "Models" tab.
Step 3: Running a Model
To test your model, go to the chat bubble icon and select the model you downloaded. You can preset system prompts and enable GPU offloading if your machine supports it.
Test the chat by typing:
Hello, how are you?You’ll get a response, and you can view metrics like time to the first token and GPU usage.
Enhancing with Anything LLM
Step 1: Download and Install
Next, download Anything LLM for your operating system from the official website. Install it as you would any other software.
Step 2: Initial Configuration
When you first open Anything LLM, you’ll be prompted to configure the instance. Select LM Studio as your LLM and enter the base URL for LM Studio’s local server.
To find this URL, go to the Local Server tab in LM Studio. Start the server and copy the URL provided.
Step 3: Adding Documents and Websites
With Anything LLM, you can interact with various documents and websites. Upload PDFs, text documents, or scrape a website directly from the interface.
Advanced Configuration
Embedding and Vector Database
Anything LLM includes its own embedding model and vector database, ensuring all your data remains local and private. During setup, you can opt to use these built-in features or connect to external services.
Custom Workspaces
Create custom workspaces for different projects. For instance, create a workspace named "Project X" and upload all relevant documents and web data. The LLM will use this context to provide more accurate responses.
Real-World Application
Example: Scraping a Website
To gather information from a specific website, use the scraping feature in Anything LLM. After scraping, embed the data into the model. Now, when you ask the LLM questions related to the content of that website, it will provide informed responses.
Performance Considerations
Hardware Requirements
While this guide demonstrates running models on a CPU, having a GPU will significantly improve performance. For instance, models like Llama 2 will run much faster on machines equipped with GPUs.
Model Selection
The choice of model affects performance. Smaller models like the 7 billion parameter version of Llama 2 are more manageable on less powerful hardware but might offer less sophisticated responses compared to larger models.
Conclusion
By combining LM Studio and Anything LLM, you can create a powerful, fully private, local LLM setup capable of handling a wide variety of tasks. This guide has walked you through the basic setup and configuration, but the possibilities are endless. Whether you’re analyzing documents, scraping websites, or just experimenting with advanced AI models, this setup offers a robust solution without the need for expensive subscriptions or cloud services.
Feel free to reach out with any questions or comments. Happy experimenting!
Note: This guide aims to provide a high-level overview and basic setup instructions. For detailed configurations and advanced usage, please refer to the official documentation of LM Studio and Anything LLM.