AI-2

AI-2

Give your computer an AI brain.

AI-2 is a Linux system for ordinary and older computers that gives them a local AI assistant: a language model that runs on the machine itself, on the CPU, with no account, no subscription and no data leaving the computer.

It never says “this computer cannot run AI”. It looks at the hardware, assigns it a capability tier, tunes the system for that tier, measures what the machine can really do (the AI Score), and recommends models that genuinely fit. Local where possible; an online model only if you explicitly choose it.

AI-2 is based on Artix Linux (Arch Linux without systemd) with the runit init system and the XFCE desktop. It is a rolling release: you update, you never reinstall for a new version. AI-2 is free software (MIT) and open source on GitHub.

Download

Download AI-2 ISO 20260821 (1.85 GB, 64-bit, BIOS/MBR)
SHA-256 checksum · all releases · changelog

Write the image to a USB stick of 4 GB or more. On Linux or macOS (replace sdX with the stick; everything on it is erased):

sudo dd if=artix-ai2-runit-20260821-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M conv=fsync status=progress

On Windows, use Rufus or balenaEtcher in their default mode. Then boot the computer from the stick. It starts a live desktop you can try without touching your disks; the START-HERE guide on that desktop explains the installation step by step.

What you need

  • A 64-bit (x86_64) PC. Very old CPUs are fine: AI-2 ships three builds of the AI engine (llama.cpp) and picks the one your CPU can run, including CPUs without AVX or SSE4.1. The oldest machine it was validated on is a 2011 laptop with an AMD A4-3305M and 4 GB of RAM.
  • RAM: 2 GB minimum (the smallest models only), 4 GB for the Light tier, 8 GB and up for larger models.
  • Disk: about 6 GB for the system, plus the models you download (0.4 to several GB each).
  • Internet is not needed to install. It is needed afterwards to download models and updates.

Lean by design

AI-2 is kept as lean as possible, with low-end machines in mind. The image ships only what it needs: the desktop, a browser, a text editor and the AI engine. No office suite, no media players, no printing stack. Anything you miss is one command away, for example sudo pacman -S atril (PDF viewer), sudo pacman -S cups (printing), sudo pacman -S libreoffice-still.

First steps after installing

At your first login the setup wizard opens by itself. It scans the machine, tunes it for its tier, installs the AI engine, downloads a first model and measures your AI Score. After that, ai-2 chat (or the “AI-2 Chat” menu entry) starts the local AI and opens a chat page in the browser. Every ai-2 command has --help.

Status and feedback

AI-2 is young. It has been tested on one old laptop and in virtual machines, so expect rough edges. If something does not work on your machine, please say so: the hardware you report is the hardware AI-2 gets better on.

AI-2 is made by Rafael Minuesa at ProWoos. Artix Linux, llama.cpp and the models keep their own licenses.

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