Running Ollama in a Linux Environment Without Root Privileges

Running applications without root privileges is a common requirement for security and compliance reasons, especially on shared systems or in environments where users don't have administrative access. This guide will walk you through setting up ollama on a Linux system under these constraints, using some tools like uv to manage Python dependencies and configuring networking correctly. Maybe, this is not the easiest way and using Docker could be simpler, but it's a good exercise to understand how to manage Python applications without root privileges.

Prerequisites

• A functional Python environment.
• Basic command-line navigation skills.
• Network access for downloading necessary files and configuring network settings.

Step-by-step Guide

1. Install uv

Firstly, we need a tool to handle Python applications efficiently without root privileges. The tool I used is uv. Here’s how you can install it:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

This command downloads and executes the installation script for uv. After installing, verify its presence using:

which uv

You might need to restart …