I'm new and it's kinda overwhelming to get into

Hi, sorry if this doesn't belong here. Getting to the point basically, I've been using online-only AI like GPT/Gemini since 2022, and have been interested in local models but am clueless overall. Yes I'm extremely late. I only use laptop (I'm a student), and I currently own: Acer swift 5 SF514-55TA (main, budget laptop) Acer Nitro 5 AN515-53 (not used currently) I don't know if it's even possible to set up anything on these. I vaguely know the basics of local models (but I'm probably too dumb for stuff like finetuning, prompts, personal setups, all that fancy shit I see online), and I have a ton of information, models, etc bookmarked on my browser which makes it hard to choose something I know (and am interested in image generation, Chatting (models)? "agents" (task programs?). I guess that needs a lot of separate programs/installations? Or is it possible to have a single client to run varying programs? (im not sure if that's even referred to correctly?) (I'll likely start small) I assume a "program" like LM studio is a good starting point? submitted by /u/Jromagnoli [link] [comments]

Related

• Can someone point me in the right direction of what model(s) to look at for a newer user?
• Best open-source harness like Claude Code?
• Making small local models actually useful for coding
• Migration from Claude Code to a private local harness. Questions.

Source: r/LocalLLaMA | 2026-09-24