So you’ve jumped into the world of local AI & installed Ollama. Pretty cool, right? You've got this powerful tool sitting on your machine, ready to go. You’ve probably even run the command to install your first model, like Llama 3 or Mistral. You see the "Success" message, & then... what?

Honestly, that's where the REAL fun begins. It's like being handed the keys to a ridiculously powerful car. Now you just need to learn how to drive it, where to go, & maybe even how to pop the hood & tinker with the engine.

That's what we're going to break down here. This is your no-nonsense guide to everything you should do after you've installed that first model. We'll go from the absolute basics of chatting with your model to managing your collection, & even creating your own custom versions.

The most immediate & gratifying thing you can do is start a conversation. This is where you get a feel for the model's personality, its speed, & what it’s good at.

Open up your terminal or command prompt. The command you'll use is , followed by the name of the model you installed. For example, if you installed , you’d type: