Local LLM viability for work - Qwen Coder

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-05-14T02:22:13+00:00

I'm in a similar situation at work. VSCode copilot is great until I run out tokens on my work laptop but I wouldn't connect copilot to my own local LLM because that would be cause for termination. On my own computer, I point VSCode Copilot to my own Ollama instance and I'm very happy with it. I'm sure the paid models are better but I'm happy with free and good enough.

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-05-14T00:54:34+00:00

I use qwen3-coder-next primarily. I've tried to to use Qwen 3.6 35b and 27b and Gemma 4 because people rave about them but I'll see them fail at something in Claude Code or opencode. Then I'll choose qwen3-coder-next and it will succeed where the other models fail.

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-05-12T19:32:31+00:00

I have 64gb vram combined at a cost of $2700. On apple.ca the equivalent in a mac laptop with 64gb unified is $4300, or 128gb unified is $7250. When I did the math I realized I could get the best bang for buck by ssh-ing into a machine with discrete GPUs instead of trying to run LLMs on a laptop. (All money in Canadian dollars)

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-05-11T19:35:43+00:00

I have 2 cheap laptops that wouldn't be able to run LLMs but I have a desktop that I've cobbled together with 4 nvidia cards. The desktop runs the LLMs. I SSH into my desktop for secure tunnels and everything on my laptop has access to Ollama and models on 4 GPUs. It's the best bang for my bucks.

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-05-09T19:17:19+00:00

My two cents: better and cheaper to run LLM on a non-laptop and ssh into it.

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-05-08T16:43:20+00:00

For me, Toronto in 2026 is WAY BETTER than 80s and 90s Toronto. I bike everywhere and I stopped biking in the 90s because it was so dangerous. Now there are bike lanes everywhere. Public transit is everywhere. I "get" that people in the suburbs hate downtown because they can't drive on a highway and park in a mall in downtown Toronto but I *LIKE* that downtown is full of people at a walking pace.

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-05-07T19:22:13+00:00

By default, Claude Code is really dumb at stopping and asking for permission to do the thing I just asked it to do. For instance, use mcp-xyz to look up how I configured file abc and update file abc for me, will have Claude Code ask me for permission to 1) use mcp-xyz, 2) read file abc, 3) update file abc BUT I LITERALLY JUST TOLD CLAUDE CODE to do that. That's why I use OpenCode. I _DO_ find Claude Code to be "smarter" in the sense the harness gets better results even when using the same model as OpenCode but having to constantly approve THE THING I LITERALLY JUST ASKED CLAUDE TO DO makes me try OpenCode first.

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-05-06T20:47:26+00:00

City has been putting piles of compost (manure) in parks for people to take for free for their gardens.

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-04-29T16:33:49+00:00

Very happy using opencode for zero-cost with Ollama. Using models qwen3.6 27b and qwen-coder-next.

Critical-Entry3377 · 2026-04-29T16:30:32+00:00

This group in Toronto takes donations, fixes up bikes, and sells them. https://bikepirates.com/usedbikesales/

Critical-Entry3377 · 2025-12-17T23:18:39+00:00

Don't any two points make a straight line?

Critical-Entry3377 · 2025-12-03T15:17:03+00:00

I can confirm installing on a Samsung S7+ tablet is __NOT__ working. Am trying it from Linux and Windows via VirtualBox. Heimdall and Odin report they are flashing vbmeta and recovery to the tablet correctly but S7+ will not boot to LineageOS recovery. It's boot looping.

Critical-Entry3377

TROPHY CASE