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Introduction to Large Language Models: A Comprehensive Walkthrough

Based on Andrej Karpathy's video introduction to LLMs like ChatGPT. This guide walks through the entire pipeline of how these systems are built and how to think about what they are.

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Overview

The goal of this guide is to give you mental models for thinking through what LLMs are. They're magical and impressive in some respects, very good at certain things, not good at others, and have a number of sharp edges to be aware of. We'll go through the entire pipeline of how these systems are built, covering cognitive and psychological implications along the way.

peterwwillis

Setting up 1Password & GitHub for commit signing

1. Prerequisites

1. Install/Update 1Password desktop app.
2. Enable the 1Password SSH Agent in Settings > Developer > SSH Agent.
3. Update Git to version 2.34.0 or later.

2. Enable the 1Password SSH Agent

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Tools

AI Agents

Gemini CLI

Only "Bob" knows why, but in Linux you have to type Ctrl+J to add new lines to your prompt.

Web Browser

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Accessing Ollama running on host OS from inside Docker-in-docker container in VM

If you run Ollama on your host OS, but want to access it from within a protected container:

1. Install Colima and Docker-in-Docker (link)
2. Install Ollama on host (link)
3. Access Ollama from the container with URL: http://host.docker.internal:11434

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Installing Ollama and OpenWebUI on Ubuntu 24.04

Notes

• you should first add your user to the following Unix groups: video, render, docker, ollama

  • sudo usermod -a -G render,video $LOGNAME

• make sure user ollama is added to groups video and `render

• install Docker (ideally in a dedicated VM; see https://gist.github.com/peterwwillis/e2b37e5dd502fd7ffc3833f56feade1e)

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Installing and running Docker-in-Docker in a dedicated Colima VM, for AI agent work

Colima creates a VM and sets up Docker inside it. This is a good command-line replacement for Docker Desktop.

Colima will keep persistent files in a different volume than the VM's root disk, so you can delete and recreate the root disk and your files are still there. This makes recovering from AI 'incidents' easy.

You can have multiple Docker contexts, one for "safe" work (in one VM), and one for "dangerous" AI work (different VM). The only real downside is a VM volume filling up with container images.

Your containers can access the local host's ports using hostname host.docker.internal.

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Setting up ThinkPad T14s Gen4 for Ubuntu Linux 24.04

About

I finally settled on a new personal Linux laptop, and it's the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 4 w/AMD processor, 32GB RAM, and Low-power 500 nits display.

I had mine shipped with Ubuntu, it comes with (I think) Ubuntu 22.04.01 LTS. It's nice because they set up the BIOS to come with Secure Boot enabled for Ubuntu. Everything works out of the box.

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#!/usr/bin/env sh
# control-touchscreen.sh - script to control touchscreen device in Linux
# Copyright (C) 2024 Peter Willis
# 
# This script is designed to try to detect a Touchscreen device in Linux.
# If it detects one, it allows you to bind or unbind it to the HID Generic
# driver, which should enable or disable the touchscreen.
# Works on Wayland, should work on X11 as well (but untested).
#
# SOFTWARE LICENSE:

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Log Files

Nodes

Control Plane log files

• /var/log/kube-apiserver.log - API Server, responsible for serving the API
• /var/log/kube-scheduler.log - Scheduler, responsible for making scheduling decisions
• /var/log/kube-controller-manager.log - a component that runs most Kubernetes built-in controllers, with the notable exception of scheduling (the kube-scheduler handles scheduling).

Worker Node log files

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GitHub's highlights of new Git releases

Git 2.3 has been released

• Push to deploy
• Faster cloning by borrowing objects from existing clones
• More conservative default behavior for git push
• More flexible ssh invocation
• The credential subsystem is now friendlier to scripting
• Other
• **[Additional resources](https:/