Frequently asked questions

New here? Start with Getting Started and Install from USB. The answers below distinguish tested behavior from planned capabilities.

Installation and operating systems

Is LexiSuite one application or an operating system? It is a family: LexiOS is the appliance, LexiKernel the optional experimental kernel, LexiEngine the inference runtime, and LexiPanel the browser control plane. You may run components on a development host without installing the USB appliance.

Does installation erase my computer? Flashing erases the selected USB drive. The documented procedure does not install to internal disks. If you select an internal disk as the write destination, that disk will be destroyed; always verify the target before confirming.

Which image and Linux version? The current image is the newest LexiSuite-<id>-secureboot-dev.img.xz on the Releases page, with a Linux 7.4-rc2 boot entry and LexiKernel. Earlier documentation describes LexiSuite-testing.img.xz on Linux 7.3. Do not mix artifacts or checksums.

What size stick do I need? 8 GB or larger. An earlier development image was about 3 GiB before LEXIDATA expansion; check the current release for its exact download size. The image has no models.

Can I use a graphical USB image writer? Yes. balenaEtcher and Raspberry Pi Imager accept the .img.xz file; a Linux dd pipeline is also documented with target and pipe-failure safeguards.

Does Secure Boot have to be disabled? Not if your firmware supports appending the development certificate to its allowed-signature db. Secure Boot tests passed in a VM, not yet on a physical Secure Boot PC. Read Secure Boot and preserve existing keys.

Will it affect Windows or disk encryption? Changing the firmware db can trigger BitLocker recovery. Keep the recovery key before enrolling; the guide preserves installed Microsoft keys and does not write the Windows disk.

Which kernel should I choose? 2 LexiOS on Linux 7.4 for broader current hardware and GPU support. 1 LexiKernel for supported experimental hardware with a functional IOMMU; see Kernels and Hardware.

Does LexiKernel need an IOMMU? Yes: active Intel VT-d or AMD-Vi. A missing IOMMU is an intentional boot refusal.

First boot and accounts

Where do I open LexiPanel? Use the actual address printed on the local boot status console. The USB appliance serves it on port 8090. Developer build listener defaults differ.

Is a one-time setup code mandatory? Yes, from any other machine. The machine's own screen shows a code (Lp1- and four groups of four); the first-boot form asks for it, in either letter case, with or without the dashes. Only a browser on the machine itself may enroll without it. Enroll promptly on a trusted LAN. See First Boot.

Do I need separate root and administrator passwords? The current Secure enrollment form requests both. The root password has a 12+ character minimum and the administrator password requires 12+ characters, upper/lowercase and a digit.

Can anyone use a protected terminal or system setting? No; privileged actions are role-gated on the server. An unauthorized caller should be refused, including when attempting a direct API call. See Security.

Models, engines and performance

Does the USB image include a model? No. Use Models to download/upload or import a local model, then configure Instances and open LexiChat.

Which accelerators work? LexiEngine has CPU, Vulkan and CUDA lanes; Metal exists on macOS builds. Physical evidence covers an RX 7900 XTX Vulkan target; other GPU support and performance have narrower qualifications. Hardware explains what was actually tested.

Is LexiEngine always faster than llama.cpp? No. The 27B RX 7900 XTX controlled runs favor LexiEngine in the supplied latest tables, while a measured 1.7B LexiOS run showed llama.cpp 25–30% faster in generation. Results depend on model, quantization, driver, speculation and context. See Benchmarks.

What do MTP, prefill, TTFT and decode mean? MTP is draft-head speculative token generation; prefill processes prompt tokens; time to first token (TTFT) measures initial response latency; decode speed is tokens produced after the first token. Compare identical settings.

Can it run with no internet access? Models and prompts can be served locally after installation. Downloads, external engines and remote/fleet integrations require their respective dependencies; offline model import is supported in the model-management interface/API. Do not assume automatic cloud access is required for local inference.

Can I switch between engines? Yes, the Panel supports managed engine choices and installation of an upstream llama.cpp build. A missing library or unsupported device should yield an explicit start failure. See Builds and Engines.

Can LexiKernel run native GPU compute? Not yet. LexiKernel's own AMD RDNA3 driver starts a physical RX 7900 XTX (passed through to LexiKernel in a virtual machine) up to running a command buffer with an interrupt-delivered fence, but it has not run a shader, and native Vulkan is not yet available. GPU work under LexiKernel currently uses a Linux driver-domain guest.

Why do some controls say unavailable? The Panel surfaces kernel or hardware restrictions explicitly. LexiKernel lacks some Linux services and current CPU/storage telemetry. Use the Linux entry for missing operations; an unavailable result is not success.

How do I reproduce a claimed benchmark? Match hardware, image/kernel, engine build, model hash, cache/context, power cap, sampling and MTP; keep the box idle; use repeated median trials and separate prefill from decode. Benchmark methodology.

Licensing, privacy and support

Can I use LexiSuite for free? The published project summary announces free personal, private and educational use; it announces US$100 per commercial instance per year with support and priority fixes on an honor system. But the current repository LICENSE restricts use without a signed written agreement. Read Licence before relying on those announcements.

Is the source open source? No. The source is proprietary; publishing source or offering review access is not the same as granting rights to redistribute or commercially deploy it.

How do I report an issue safely? Use Diagnostics and Troubleshooting, capture exact error text and hardware/build versions, and redact credentials, setup codes, tokens and private prompts.

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