ollama/x

Experimental Features

MLX Backend

We're working on a new experimental backend based on the MLX project

Support is currently limited to MacOS and Linux with CUDA GPUs. We're looking to add support for Windows CUDA soon, and other GPU vendors.

Building ollama-mlx

The ollama-mlx binary is a separate build of Ollama with MLX support enabled. This enables experimental features like image generation.

macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel)

# Build MLX backend libraries
cmake --preset MLX
cmake --build --preset MLX --parallel
cmake --install build --component MLX

# Build ollama-mlx binary
go build -tags mlx -o ollama-mlx .

Linux (CUDA)

On Linux, use the preset "MLX CUDA 13" or "MLX CUDA 12" to enable CUDA with the default Ollama NVIDIA GPU architectures enabled:

# Build MLX backend libraries with CUDA support
cmake --preset 'MLX CUDA 13'
cmake --build --preset 'MLX CUDA 13' --parallel
cmake --install build --component MLX

# Build ollama-mlx binary
CGO_CFLAGS="-O3 -I$(pwd)/build/_deps/mlx-c-src" \
CGO_LDFLAGS="-L$(pwd)/build/lib/ollama -lmlxc -lmlx" \
go build -tags mlx -o ollama-mlx .

Using build scripts

The build scripts automatically create the ollama-mlx binary:

• macOS: ./scripts/build_darwin.sh produces dist/darwin/ollama-mlx
• Linux: ./scripts/build_linux.sh produces ollama-mlx in the output archives

Image Generation

Image generation is built into the ollama-mlx binary. Run ollama-mlx serve to start the server with image generation support enabled.