Edit: I double-checked the model card on Ollama(https://ollama.com/library/deepseek-r1), and it does mention DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B in the metadata. So this is actually a distilled model. But honestly, that still impresses me!

Just discovered DeepSeek R1 and I'm pretty hyped about it. For those who don't know, it's a new open-source AI model that matches OpenAI o1 and Claude 3.5 Sonnet in math, coding, and reasoning tasks.

You can check out Reddit to see what others are saying about DeepSeek R1 vs OpenAI o1 and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. For me it's really good - good enough to be compared with those top models.

And the best part? You can run it locally on your machine, with total privacy and 100% FREE!!

I've got it running locally and have been playing with it for a while. Here's my setup - super easy to follow:

(Just a note: While I'm using a Mac, this guide works exactly the same for Windows and Linux users*! 👌)*

1) Install Ollama

Quick intro to Ollama: It's a tool for running AI models locally on your machine. Grab it here: https://ollama.com/download

2) Next, you'll need to pull and run the DeepSeek R1 model locally.

Ollama offers different model sizes - basically, bigger models = smarter AI, but need better GPU. Here's the lineup:

1.5B version (smallest):
ollama run deepseek-r1:1.5b

8B version:
ollama run deepseek-r1:8b

14B version:
ollama run deepseek-r1:14b

32B version:
ollama run deepseek-r1:32b

70B version (biggest/smartest):
ollama run deepseek-r1:70b

Maybe start with a smaller model first to test the waters. Just open your terminal and run:

ollama run deepseek-r1:8b

Once it's pulled, the model will run locally on your machine. Simple as that!

Note: The bigger versions (like 32B and 70B) need some serious GPU power. Start small and work your way up based on your hardware!

3) Set up Chatbox - a powerful client for AI models

Quick intro to Chatbox: a free, clean, and powerful desktop interface that works with most models. I started it as a side project for 2 years. It’s privacy-focused (all data stays local) and super easy to set up—no Docker or complicated steps. Download here: https://chatboxai.app

In Chatbox, go to settings and switch the model provider to Ollama. Since you're running models locally, you can ignore the built-in cloud AI options - no license key or payment is needed!

Then set up the Ollama API host - the default setting is http://127.0.0.1:11434, which should work right out of the box. That's it! Just pick the model and hit save. Now you're all set and ready to chat with your locally running Deepseek R1! 🚀

Hope this helps! Let me know if you run into any issues.

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Here are a few tests I ran on my local DeepSeek R1 setup (loving Chatbox's artifact preview feature btw!) 👇

Explain TCP:

Honestly, this looks pretty good, especially considering it's just an 8B model!

Make a Pac-Man game:

It looks great, but I couldn’t actually play it. I feel like there might be a few small bugs that could be fixed with some tweaking. (Just to clarify, this wasn’t done on the local model — my mac doesn’t have enough space for the largest deepseek R1 70b model, so I used the cloud model instead.)

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Honestly, I’ve seen a lot of overhyped posts about models here lately, so I was a bit skeptical going into this. But after testing DeepSeek R1 myself, I think it’s actually really solid. It’s not some magic replacement for OpenAI or Claude, but it’s surprisingly capable for something that runs locally. The fact that it’s free and works offline is a huge plus.

What do you guys think? Curious to hear your honest thoughts.

After seeing the Apple paper https://youtu.be/tTG_a0KPJAc that confirmed to me that LLMs are knowledgeable, but stupid (as they don't understand word problems), I sought to try my preferred Turing test on deepseek-r1:14b. I'm not impressed; we still have a long way to go.

I pasted my prompt and some of its first response below. I had to delete the rest of the response, because it was more than 10,000 words long, which included 131 "wait" expressions. This was using Ollama locally via Open WebUI, with the default settings.

How many standard pallets can fit into a 1 TEU container without stacking?

deepseek-r1:14b

<think>

Okay, so I need to figure out how many standard pallets can fit into a 1 TEU container without stacking. Hmm, I've heard about TEUs before, but I'm not entirely sure what they are exactly. From what I remember, TEU stands for Twenty-Equivalent Unit, which is a measure used in shipping containers. One TEU is the size of a standard container that's 20 feet long. So, a 1 TEU container would be a 20-foot container.

Now, about pallets. A standard pallet size I think is usually either Euro pallet or another type. The most common ones I've heard are around 4 feet by 4 feet (or roughly 1.2 meters by 1.2 meters). But wait, maybe they're a bit bigger? Let me double-check that. Yeah, actually, the standard European pallet is 800mm x 1200mm, which is about 31.5 inches by 47.2 inches. So each pallet is pretty sizable.

The container is 20 feet long. I know that 1 foot is 12 inches, so 20 feet would be 240 inches. Wait, no, wait—that's not right because the container length is usually given in feet and converted differently. Let me think—actually, a 20-foot container is about 6.05 meters long. But how does that translate to fitting pallets inside?

So, if each pallet is around 1.2 meters wide and 2.4 meters long (wait, no, I might be mixing up the dimensions). Actually, standard Euro pallets are 800mm x 1200mm, which translates to about 31.5 inches by 47.2 inches. So lengthwise, each pallet is longer than it is wide.

If the container is 20 feet long (which is approximately 6.05 meters), and the pallets are 1.2 meters in one dimension, how many can fit along the length? Let's calculate that: 6.05 meters divided by 1.2 meters per pallet. That gives roughly 5.04, so you could fit about 5 pallets along the length if arranged correctly.

Wait, but hold on—containers have different dimensions than just their length. They also have width and height. I think a standard 20-foot container has an internal dimension of 20 feet (length) x 7.87 feet (width) x 6.96 feet (height). Converting that to meters, it's approximately 6.05m x 2.4m x 2.13m.

... it goes on and on for more than 10,000 words....

It eventually stated:

</think>

The maximum number of standard European pallets (EUR) that can fit into a standard 20-foot shipping container is 270.