Technology

Im actually fine with this but its got to be gpl all the way and it should be like runlevels. install console only, install graphhical, install llm supported.

I just recently had an issue with Access, where running a report multiple times would randomly result in errors, or clean reports. The explanation copilot gave was that Access has a built in LLM now that is "interpreting" certain queries, and may result in different outputs, even different resulting data types. So doing a join on those outputs for the report, would sometimes result in reporting errors, even without changing the underlying logic. AI has sorta taken a calculator that used to reliably return 2 + 2 = 4, and turned it into one that sometimes thinks 2 + 2 = chair.

I don't know how comfy I am seeing AI integrated everywhere at this stage of the tech. It really doesn't feel mature enough for production.

They're discussing a new spin specifically for AI developers, not changing existing distros to include new stuff.

CTFD

I think it is good to have optional support for local models that lets people use them in an offline and private and easy way. There is a lot of non technical folks using linux nowadays and many chose it for privacy and greater control over their data.

Depending on the implementation it could hook into certain os contexts and events to actually be helpful.

Either way I don't see the cat going back in the bag with regards to LLMs. That being said I run Debian everywhere except my work machine which is ubuntu.

-The system image will not be pre-configured with applications that inspect or monitor how users interact with the system or otherwise place user privacy at risk.

-Tools and applications included in the AI Desktop will not be pre-configured to connect to remote AI services.

-AI tools will not be added to Fedora’s existing system images, Editions, etc, by the AI Desktop initiative.

1. It's a new system image, your Fedora and Ubuntu installs will not be modified.
2. The applications that would have privacy implications will be opt-in by default.
3. It will not use remote AI unless you configure it to.

I don't see the problem.

Always pretty funny to see the FOSS community willingly follow the lead of corporate investment trends, but for fractions of pennies on the dollar compared to big tech.

If you're gonna act like Microsoft you might as well do it for the money.

lol they already support running local models. wtf is the distro gonna do…? pre-install llama.cpp? this is so silly to me that people are resigning over this, too.

What’s wrong with just installing ollama?

I mean if it's completely optional and opt-in, sure go for it. Knock yourself out. I won't be using it (my computer isn't powerful enough to run local LLMs)

Shame

FWIW, LM Studio makes it incredibly easy to do this. I've been in tech for decades, and there are probably only a couple of suggestions I"d made to the LMS team if they wanted to target a broader, less tech savvy user base, but I think they already have their target demographic covered. I imagine the Ubuntu and Fedora crowds are already tech savvy, but vendors making it easier to ween reliance off tech giants' LLMs isn't a bad thing, if LLM's are here to stay.

Now the one thing that will turn me off to initiatives like this is if these OS vendors restrct which model can be used, or make it more friction not to use their "chosen" default. Like Google just did by pushing What I"m assuming was Gemma 4 E2B to Chrome users. I figure Google wants to offload the LLM usage to local compute to take the load of their data centers, and since Chrome is already a data harvesting tool for them, there was no downside to their operations.

SUSE contributes to Fedora? WTF?

I don't really understand the point? You can already do a lot on Linux using AI via CLI with bash.

FOMO is a thing. Who’s gonna want to run the old version packaged in the distro anyway. Those things go stale pretty quickly, especially at the rate we’re seeing updates in local inference.