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How to boot an offline LLM chat from a USB stick with NIGHTRUN

Turn a spare x86_64 PC into a chat box that runs a local model with no operating system.

Who it is forA person with a spare 64-bit UEFI PC who wants a private, offline chat model and is comfortable with firmware boot menus.

The problemRunning a local model usually means installing a full OS, drivers and a runtime, and the machine keeps all of that running in the background.

The outcomeA USB stick that boots the PC directly into a NightRun chat prompt, with the model loaded in RAM and answering on the CPU offline.

What you need first

  • A Linux machine with Rust stable and nightly installed
  • About 6 GB of free disk for a model plus the image
  • A USB stick (x86_64 target) or microSD card (Raspberry Pi 5 target), or QEMU for testing without hardware
  • For real hardware: a 64-bit UEFI x86_64 PC with Secure Boot off, or a Raspberry Pi 5

Steps

  1. Run git clone https://github.com/hardrave/NIGHTRUN.git and then cd NIGHTRUN.
  2. Run less install.sh and read what the script does before you run it.
  3. Run ./install.sh, choose the x86_64 USB target and a model, then type FLASH /dev/sdX exactly with the device name the installer shows you.
  4. Boot the target PC from the USB stick with Secure Boot off and wait for the NightRun chat prompt.

Prompt for your agent

Use the repo hardrave/NIGHTRUN to prepare an x86_64 USB boot stick for target device <target> (a whole-disk device such as /dev/sdX). Run the installer, confirm the device name it shows matches <target>, and report the verified media result. Verify that the installer reports the written image as verified by SHA-256 read-back before you finish.

Caveat. Real-machine firmware quirks vary, and the README says broad real-hardware coverage on x86 is still open, so test on your own PC before relying on it.

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