Description: Verify the OS version and GPU are visible before installing anything.
cat /etc/os-release | head -n 2
nvidia-smi
Expected output should show Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (DGX OS 7.3.1 base) and a detected GPU.
Description: Install Ollama or ensure it is recent enough to support ollama launch.
curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh
ollama --version
If Ollama is already installed, just verify the version:
ollama --version
Expected output should show Ollama v0.15 or newer.
Description: Download the Qwen3.6 model weights to your Spark node.
ollama pull qwen3.6
Optional variants if you want different memory footprints or precision:
ollama pull qwen3.6:35b-a3b-nvfp4 # NVIDIA FP4 build tuned for Blackwell (~22GB)
ollama pull qwen3.6:35b-a3b-q8_0 # Higher-quality 8-bit quant (~39GB)
ollama pull qwen3.6:35b-a3b-bf16 # Full precision (~71GB)
Expected output should show qwen3.6 in ollama list.
Description: Run a quick prompt to confirm the model loads.
ollama run qwen3.6
Try a prompt like:
Write a short README checklist for a Python project.
Expected output should show the model responding. When you are done, type /bye or press Ctrl+D to exit before continuing.
Description: Install Codex CLI, then use Ollama's built-in launch method to start it against your local model. Ollama configures the local-model integration, but the Codex CLI binary must be installed first. No ~/.codex/config.toml is required.
npm install -g @openai/codex
codex --version
ollama launch codex --model qwen3.6
Expected output should show Codex CLI starting with Ollama as the provider and Qwen3.6 as the model. Qwen3.6 ships with a 256K context window by default, which is well suited to Codex's agentic workflows.
Description: Create a tiny repo and let Codex implement a function and tests.
mkdir -p ~/cli-agent-demo
cd ~/cli-agent-demo
printf 'def add(a, b):\n """Return the sum of a and b."""\n pass\n' > math_utils.py
printf 'import math_utils\n\n\ndef test_add():\n assert math_utils.add(1, 2) == 3\n' > test_math_utils.py
If you do not already have pytest installed:
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install -U pytest
In Codex:
Please implement add() in math_utils.py and make sure the test passes.
Run the test:
python3 -m pytest -q
Expected output should show the test passing. When you are done, run deactivate to exit the virtual environment.
Description: Remove the model and stop services if you no longer need them.
To stop the service:
sudo systemctl stop ollama
WARNING
This will delete the downloaded model files.
ollama rm qwen3.6
qwen3.6:35b-a3b-nvfp4 or bf16 variants for different quality/VRAM tradeoffs