Am I ready?

Work through both checklists. Part 1 needs only the first.

Part 1

• The app opens (Ollama or LM Studio).
• The model answers a message.

Part 2

• Python 3.12 or 3.13 is installed.
• uv is installed.
• The notebooks repository is on your computer (cloned or unpacked) and uv sync finished.
• qwen3-embedding:0.6b is downloaded (ollama list shows it).
• The two index files for notebook 03 are in runs/.
• 00_check_setup.ipynb is green on every line.

Install the two tools the commands need

1. uv. This tool installs Python and the packages the notebooks need. The one-line installers for macOS, Linux and Windows are on the environment page. If the Python on your system is not 3.12 or 3.13, uv installs the right version for you.
2. git. On macOS, the first time you run git, the system asks to install the command line tools. Windows does not include git: install Git for Windows from https://git-scm.com/download/win. If you prefer not to install git, go to the repository page, click the green Code button, choose Download ZIP, and unpack the file. Then, in the commands below, skip the git clone line and cd into the unpacked folder instead.

Then run the commands:

python3 --version
uv --version
git clone https://github.com/nishad/llm-workshop-notebooks
cd llm-workshop-notebooks
uv sync
uv run jupyter lab

py --version
uv --version
git clone https://github.com/nishad/llm-workshop-notebooks
cd llm-workshop-notebooks
uv sync
uv run jupyter lab

In JupyterLab, open 00_check_setup.ipynb and run all cells.

We built and tested the materials with Ollama 0.40.4 on 15 October 2026.

What to paste when asking for help

Post in the forum topic (https://forum.swib.org/t/getting-started-with-local-llms/1732) and include:

1. The output of the last cell of 00_check_setup.ipynb.
2. The exact error text.
3. Your operating system and how much memory your computer has.

See also Troubleshooting.