I tested a new Debian Linux loaded with local AI – see if it’s right for you

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Shadowfetch aims to bring local AI and Linux together.
• This distro makes installing LLMs and agents easy.
• The distro is very early stage of development.

For many, the idea of AI invading Linux is blasphemy. There are, however, those who believe it is an inevitability and have fully embraced the concept. Even Linux creator Linus Torvalds has told anti-AI developers to “fork off.”

Now, one developer has taken Debian and twisted it into a local AI workstation that would make a great tool for your AI needs. Use it for general AI chats, to help you develop apps, or just about anything where AI could assist.

Also: Linus Torvalds puts his foot down, tells anti-AI programmers to ‘fork it’

The distribution is Shadowfetch. Before I continue, however, a caveat: This distro is in the very early stages of development, and it appears to have only one developer working on it, which means it might progress very slowly. Even so, it’s already pretty impressive (even in these early stages). Therefore, I don’t yet recommend Shadowfetch for anything more than satisfying your curiosity. 

I had tons of trouble getting Shadowfetch up and working (the installation failed every time, so I had to run it from a live instance). And running an AI-based workstation from RAM isn’t even close to being ideal. No matter what I did, I could not get Shadowfetch to install. During the installation, around 50% of the way through, it went to the lock screen, and when I logged in (username/password = shadow), it was back to square one (as if I hadn’t run the installation). Oddly enough, when I went to re-run the installation, the drive’s partitioning had succeeded.

A distro with many options

Anyway, during my time running the OS in RAM, it gave me a good indication of where the developer intends to take Shadowfetch. This is going to be a sort of “make it what you want” distribution. Before installing the OS, you can choose a setup profile that includes options like Creative studio, Developer workstation, Gaming, Office and communication, Local AI lab, and Maker and hardware. You can select one or more of these options to create the exact workstation you want.

During that profile creation, you’ll also get to set up AI exactly how you want it. You can opt for private local AI, choose your model, and select between two agents — Hermes and OpenClaw. The AI setup alone makes this distribution worth a go (when it’s finally capable of being installed on a hard drive).

Once you have everything set up, you’ll find a handy AI tool  — Shadowfetch Assistant — that enables you to interact with the agent/model(s) you’ve chosen. Shadowfetch works with Ollama under the hood, so it works wonderfully. (I use Ollama when I need AI.)

I found the AI chat tool works really well. It’s fast and doesn’t slow down the system as it churns to answer your query. Of course, that’s all relative. I even challenged it to create a Linux app for choosing an outfit for the day, and it produced the answer far faster than I expected. Compared to Ollama installed on my primary desktop,  Shadowfetch was significantly faster.

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Preinstalled apps

What you get preinstalled will depend on the profile you select. For example, if you go with the Office and communication profile, you’ll find Calibre, LibreOffice, PDF Arranger, Thunderbird, and Syncthing Web UI. If you add Creative Studio, you get apps like GIMP, Audacity, Ardour, Easy Effects, Kdenlive, and Shotcut.

The list goes on and on. You can wind up with a pretty impressive set of default apps.

Who would be a good match for Shadowfetch?

Prospective users are those who want a Linux distribution with a dedicated AI studio that simplifies installing agents such as Hermes and OpenClaw. Although there currently appear to be no agentic AI features that could bridge apps like GIMP and LibreOffice to AI, such features could be planned for the future.

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At the same time, Shadowfetch will be a great choice for those who want to use AI, provided it’s locally installed. If you want AI that doesn’t use a cloud service or even reach beyond your local system, this distro might be just what you want.

Hopefully, at some point, the developer will fix the installation process, so Shadowfetch can be more thoroughly tested and used. Currently, however, I can only recommend running this Linux distribution in a live instance; otherwise, you might wind up pulling out all your hair in frustration.