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Features included

PAI ships as a complete, self-contained Linux environment — every tool listed on this page is available the moment you boot from USB, with no internet connection required. The software selection is intentional: AI inference, privacy protection, and everyday productivity are all covered out of the box, while optional categories like cryptocurrency wallets and developer tools activate based on your chosen edition.

In this guide: - The full app catalog organized by category with launch methods - How PAI's profile system determines which apps are available - Keyboard shortcuts for every major application - A quick-start tutorial to explore 5 apps in your first 5 minutes - Answers to common questions about PAI's software selection

Prerequisites: PAI booted and running. No technical experience needed — this page is also useful for evaluating PAI before you boot it.

App category summary

Category Apps included Profile
AI stack 3 All profiles
Desktop environment 8 All profiles
Web and networking 4 All profiles
File management and productivity 9 All profiles
Privacy and security 8 All profiles
Audio and video 5 All profiles
System utilities 7 All profiles
Cryptocurrency 2 Crypto profile
Development tools 11 Dev profile
Games 3 Full profile

How PAI profiles determine what's installed

PAI is built in multiple editions. The base profile includes the AI stack, desktop, privacy tools, and everyday productivity apps. The Crypto profile adds Bitcoin and web wallet support. The Dev profile adds a complete development toolchain. The Full profile includes all of the above plus games.

flowchart TD
    A[PAI ISO] --> B[Base profile]
    A --> C[Crypto profile]
    A --> D[Dev profile]
    A --> E[Full profile]

    B --> F[AI stack]
    B --> G[Desktop environment]
    B --> H[Privacy and security]
    B --> I[Web and networking]
    B --> J[Productivity]
    B --> K[System utilities]

    C --> B
    C --> L[Electrum Bitcoin wallet]
    C --> M[Web wallet shortcuts]

    D --> B
    D --> N[Git, GitHub CLI, Python]
    D --> O[Build tools and CLI utilities]

    E --> D
    E --> C
    E --> P[Games: Aisleriot, GNOME Mines, Frozen Bubble]

    style A fill:#1a1a2e,color:#fff
    style B fill:#16213e,color:#fff
    style C fill:#0f3460,color:#fff
    style D fill:#0f3460,color:#fff
    style E fill:#533483,color:#fff

Note

The edition you downloaded determines your app set. Run cat /etc/pai-edition at the terminal to see which edition is running.

AI stack

The AI stack is the core of PAI. All three components run entirely offline — your prompts never leave your hardware.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  Your Hardware                       │
│                                                     │
│  ┌─────────────┐    ┌──────────────┐               │
│  │    Ollama   │◄───│  Open WebUI  │◄──── Firefox  │
│  │  :11434     │    │  :8080       │               │
│  └─────────────┘    └──────────────┘               │
│        │                                            │
│  ┌─────▼─────┐                                     │
│  │  llama3.2 │  ← stays on your machine            │
│  │  :1b      │    never leaves                     │
│  └───────────┘                                     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Ollama [Offline ready]

Ollama is the local LLM runtime that powers all AI features on PAI. It runs large language models entirely on your CPU or GPU, exposes a REST API at localhost:11434, and ships with llama3.2:1b pre-pulled so you can start chatting immediately.

  • Launch: Ollama starts automatically at boot; no action needed
  • Terminal access: ollama list, ollama run llama3.2:1b
  • Upstream: ollama.com

See Managing Ollama Models for pulling and switching models.

Open WebUI [Offline ready]

Open WebUI is the PAI-branded chat interface — a polished, browser-based frontend for Ollama. It runs at localhost:8080 and opens automatically in Firefox on first boot.

  • Launch: Open Firefox and navigate to localhost:8080, or press Super+W
  • Features: conversation history, model switching, system prompt editor, file uploads
  • Upstream: openwebui.com

pai-models script [Offline ready]

pai-models is a PAI-specific shell script for managing Ollama models from the command line. It wraps ollama with a cleaner interface for listing, pulling, and removing models.

  • Launch: Open a terminal and run pai-models
  • Commands: pai-models list, pai-models pull <name>, pai-models remove <name>

Desktop environment

PAI uses Sway, a Wayland tiling window manager, as its desktop environment. The combination is lightweight, fast, and works without a GPU.

Sway [Offline ready]

Sway is a Wayland compositor and tiling window manager. Windows are arranged automatically in a grid — no mouse required. It is compatible with i3 keybindings and configuration.

  • Launch: Starts automatically at boot
  • Key bindings: Super+Enter (new terminal), Super+Q (close window), Super+[1-9] (switch workspace)
  • Upstream: swaywm.org

See Desktop Basics for the full keybinding reference.

Waybar [Offline ready]

Waybar is the status bar at the bottom of the PAI desktop. It shows the app launcher, clock, Ollama model status, and (in the Crypto edition) a live crypto ticker.

Wofi [Offline ready]

Wofi is the application launcher and menu renderer. Press Super+D to open it, type a few letters of an app name, and press Enter to launch.

Foot [Offline ready]

Foot is the default terminal emulator — fast, GPU-accelerated under Wayland, and minimal.

Mako [Offline ready]

Mako is the desktop notification daemon. It displays brief pop-up notifications in the corner of the screen for system events and app alerts.

Supporting desktop components

Component Purpose Notes
swaybg Desktop wallpaper renderer Loads PAI wallpaper at boot
swaylock Screen locker Super+L to lock screen
swayidle Idle manager Auto-locks after inactivity
grim + slurp Screenshot tools Super+Shift+S for region screenshot

Web and networking

Firefox ESR [Offline ready]

Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) is the default web browser. It opens to the Open WebUI chat interface at localhost:8080 on first boot.

  • Launch: Super+B, or click the Firefox icon in Waybar
  • Privacy settings: third-party cookies blocked, telemetry disabled by default
  • Upstream: mozilla.org/firefox

Tip

Firefox is the only browser you need for Open WebUI. All AI interactions stay on localhost — no data ever goes to the internet.

Tor Browser [Offline ready]

Tor Browser routes all traffic through the Tor anonymity network, masking your IP address and preventing traffic analysis. It is available in all PAI editions.

  • Launch: Alt+Shift+T when Privacy Mode is active, or search for "Tor Browser" in Wofi
  • Upstream: torproject.org

See Privacy Mode for how to enable system-wide Tor routing.

NetworkManager [Offline ready]

NetworkManager with nm-applet handles Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and VPN connections. The nm-applet icon appears in Waybar.

  • Launch: Click the network icon in Waybar, or run nmtui in the terminal
  • VPN: WireGuard support included via wireguard-tools
  • Upstream: networkmanager.dev

OnionShare [Offline ready]

OnionShare lets you share files anonymously over the Tor network. The recipient gets a .onion address and downloads directly — no cloud storage, no account.

Warning

OnionShare requires an active Tor connection. Make sure Privacy Mode is enabled before starting a share session.

File management and productivity

Thunar [Offline ready]

Thunar is the graphical file manager. It supports tabs, bookmarks, and archive extraction via integration with File Roller.

Mousepad [Offline ready]

Mousepad is a lightweight text editor with syntax highlighting. It handles configuration files, notes, and code editing.

Drawing [Offline ready]

Drawing is a simple image editor for sketching, annotating screenshots, and basic image manipulation. Think MS Paint for Linux.

Zathura [Offline ready]

Zathura is a keyboard-driven PDF reader. It supports Vim-style navigation and renders PDFs efficiently even on low-power hardware.

  • Launch: zathura file.pdf in the terminal, or open a PDF in Thunar
  • Key bindings: j/k to scroll, +/- to zoom, q to quit
  • Upstream: pwmt.org/projects/zathura

imv [Offline ready]

imv is a fast image viewer for Wayland. It handles JPEG, PNG, WebP, and most common formats.

  • Launch: imv image.png in the terminal, or open an image in Thunar
  • Upstream: sr.ht/~exec64/imv

Galculator [Offline ready]

Galculator is a graphical calculator supporting standard, scientific, and programmer modes.

Audacious [Offline ready]

Audacious is an audio player supporting MP3, FLAC, OGG, and other formats. It includes a plugin system for equalizers and visualizations.

mpv [Offline ready]

mpv is a command-line video player that handles virtually every video format. It also accepts URLs for streaming when a network connection is available.

  • Launch: mpv video.mp4 in the terminal, or open a video in Thunar
  • Upstream: mpv.io

tesseract-ocr [Offline ready]

Tesseract OCR extracts text from images. Useful for copying text from screenshots, scanned documents, or photos of printed material.

Privacy and security

PAI is designed for privacy-first computing. Every tool in this section runs entirely offline.

Danger

These tools provide strong privacy protections, but no tool eliminates all risk. Read the Privacy Mode doc and Warnings and Limitations before relying on PAI for sensitive work.

UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall) [Offline ready]

UFW is the system firewall. PAI ships with a default-deny inbound policy — all unsolicited incoming connections are blocked.

  • Launch: Terminal only: sudo ufw status, sudo ufw enable
  • Upstream: launchpad.net/ufw

Tor + Torsocks [Offline ready]

Tor routes network traffic through the Tor anonymity network. Torsocks wraps individual commands so they use Tor: torsocks curl https://check.torproject.org.

  • Launch: Tor starts automatically in Privacy Mode; torsocks is a terminal command
  • Upstream: torproject.org

Macchanger [Offline ready]

Macchanger randomizes your network card's MAC address at boot, preventing Wi-Fi networks from tracking your device across sessions.

KeePassXC [Offline ready]

KeePassXC is an offline password manager. It stores passwords in an encrypted .kdbx database file — nothing syncs to a cloud service.

See KeePassXC on PAI for setup and persistence tips.

GnuPG + Kleopatra [Offline ready]

GnuPG (GNU Privacy Guard) handles encryption, decryption, and digital signing of files and messages using OpenPGP. Kleopatra is the graphical frontend for key management.

See GPG Encryption on PAI for generating keys and encrypting files.

mat2 [Offline ready]

mat2 strips metadata from files before you share them. Documents, images, and audio files often contain hidden data — author name, GPS coordinates, timestamps — that mat2 removes.

Tip

Run mat2 --check file.jpg to see what metadata a file contains before removing it.

cryptsetup [Offline ready]

cryptsetup manages LUKS encrypted volumes. PAI's optional persistence layer uses cryptsetup to encrypt your persistent data partition.

secure-delete [Offline ready]

secure-delete overwrites files before deletion, making recovery significantly harder than standard rm. Use it for sensitive files you need to destroy.

  • Launch: srm -z sensitive-file.txt in the terminal
  • Upstream: manpage: srm(1)

Audio and video

App Purpose Launch Profile
PipeWire Low-latency audio server Auto-starts at boot All
PulseAudio (via PipeWire) Application audio routing pavucontrol for GUI All
pavucontrol Volume mixer GUI Search "Volume Control" in Wofi All
mpv Video player mpv file.mp4 in terminal All
Audacious Music player Search "Audacious" in Wofi All
ffmpeg Video/audio conversion Terminal: ffmpeg -i input output All
playerctl Media key control Auto, bound to keyboard media keys All

System utilities

App Purpose Launch Notes
htop Interactive process monitor htop in terminal Full system view
lxtask Graphical task manager Search "Task Manager" in Wofi Simpler GUI alternative
baobab Disk usage analyzer Search "Disk Usage" in Wofi Shows folder sizes visually
gnome-disk-utility Partition manager Search "Disks" in Wofi Format, mount, SMART data
file-roller Archive manager Opens automatically from Thunar ZIP, tar.gz, 7z support
wl-clipboard Wayland clipboard wl-copy / wl-paste in terminal Pipe data to/from clipboard
grim + slurp Screenshot tools Super+Shift+S Region-select screenshot

Cryptocurrency tools [Crypto profile only]

Note

Cryptocurrency tools are included in the Crypto and Full editions of PAI. They are not present in the base or Dev editions.

Electrum [Offline ready] [Crypto profile only]

Electrum is a lightweight Bitcoin wallet that verifies transactions without downloading the full blockchain. It can operate in offline mode for cold storage — generate and sign transactions without ever connecting to the internet.

  • Launch: Search "Electrum" in Wofi
  • Cold storage: Generate a wallet offline, record the seed phrase, never connect
  • Upstream: electrum.org

Warning

Always write down your Electrum seed phrase and store it somewhere safe. PAI runs in RAM by default — your wallet is lost when you shut down unless you use the persistence layer.

Web wallet shortcuts [Crypto profile only]

The Crypto edition includes browser bookmarks and Waybar shortcuts for Phantom (Solana) and pump.fun. These require an internet connection and open in Firefox.

  • Phantom: Solana wallet browser extension pre-configured in Firefox
  • pump.fun: Token launch platform bookmark

Development tools [Dev profile only]

Note

Development tools are included in the Dev and Full editions of PAI. They are not present in the base or Crypto editions.

Version control

Tool Purpose Command
Git Version control git
Git LFS Large file storage git lfs
GitHub CLI GitHub from the terminal gh
gitg Graphical git history viewer gitg
OpenSSH client + server Remote access, git over SSH ssh, sshd

Python environment

PAI Dev ships with Python 3, pip, and venv — everything you need to build AI scripts that call the local Ollama API without managing system dependencies.

# Create an isolated Python environment
python3 -m venv myproject
source myproject/bin/activate
pip install requests

Build tools and CLI utilities

Tool Purpose Notes
make Build automation Standard Makefile support
pkg-config Library detection Required by many C projects
libssl-dev SSL development headers For Python cryptography package
jq JSON processor curl localhost:11434/api/tags \| jq
tmux Terminal multiplexer Super+T for split-pane terminal
fzf Fuzzy finder Ctrl+R for fuzzy history search
ripgrep Fast file search rg "search term" .
fd-find Fast file finder fd filename
bat Better cat with syntax highlighting bat file.py
tree Directory tree view tree -L 2
neofetch System info display neofetch
poppler-utils PDF utilities pdftotext file.pdf

Games [Full profile only]

Note

Games are included in the Full edition only.

Game Genre Launch
Aisleriot Solitaire card games (80+ variants) Search "Solitaire" in Wofi
GNOME Mines Minesweeper Search "Mines" in Wofi
Frozen Bubble Bubble shooter arcade game Search "Frozen Bubble" in Wofi

Tutorial: Launch 5 apps in your first 5 minutes

Goal: Get comfortable with PAI's keyboard-driven interface by launching five key apps using shortcuts alone.

What you need: PAI booted and showing the Sway desktop.

  1. Open a terminal — Press Super+Enter. A Foot terminal window opens. You are now at a shell prompt.
# Confirm Ollama is running
ollama list

Expected output: 

NAME               ID              SIZE      MODIFIED
llama3.2:1b        a2af6cc6c18c    1.3 GB    2 hours ago

  1. Launch the app finder — Press Super+D. The Wofi launcher appears. Type firefox and press Enter. Firefox opens to the Open WebUI chat interface at localhost:8080.

  2. Start a chat — In Open WebUI, click the message box, type Hello, what can you help me with?, and press Enter. Llama3.2:1b responds entirely from your local hardware.

  3. Open the file manager — Press Super+D again, type thunar, press Enter. Thunar opens. You now have two windows: Firefox and Thunar. Notice how Sway tiles them side by side automatically.

  4. Take a screenshot — Press Super+Shift+S. Your cursor becomes a crosshair. Click and drag to select a region. The screenshot is copied to your clipboard and saved to ~/Pictures/.

# Confirm the screenshot was saved
ls ~/Pictures/

What just happened? You launched every major interface type in PAI — terminal, browser, AI chat, file manager, and screenshot tool — without touching the mouse. This keyboard-first workflow is how PAI is designed to be used.

Next steps: Read Desktop Basics for the complete keybinding reference, or go to Managing Ollama Models to pull a more capable model.

Frequently asked questions

Does PAI include a VPN?

PAI includes WireGuard (wireguard-tools) for VPN connectivity, but does not ship with a pre-configured VPN service. You supply your own WireGuard configuration file and import it via NetworkManager. PAI also includes Tor for anonymizing traffic without a VPN account. See Privacy Mode for details.

Can I install more apps?

Yes, with caveats. In a standard RAM-only session, apps installed with apt or pip exist only until you shut down. If you've set up the persistence layer, you can configure a persistent apt overlay so installed packages survive reboots. You can also pre-install packages into a custom ISO by forking the build system.

Is Firefox the only browser?

No. Firefox ESR is the default browser, but Tor Browser is also pre-installed. Tor Browser is recommended for any browsing you want to be anonymous. Both browsers are available in all PAI editions. You can install Chromium in a persistent session, but it is not included by default.

Does PAI include Bitcoin support?

The Crypto and Full editions include Electrum, a lightweight Bitcoin wallet that supports offline cold-storage signing. Web wallet shortcuts for Solana (Phantom) and pump.fun are also pre-configured in Firefox. The base and Dev editions do not include these tools. See the Cryptocurrency tools section above.

What text editors are included?

PAI includes Mousepad, a graphical text editor with syntax highlighting, in all editions. The Dev edition also includes standard terminal editors available via apt in a pinch (nano is available as a Debian base dependency). There is no VS Code or similar IDE pre-installed, though you can install one in a persistent session.

Is there an office suite?

No office suite (LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, etc.) is pre-installed. PAI's design philosophy prioritizes a lean image size and boot speed. You can install LibreOffice in a persistent session with sudo apt install libreoffice. For PDF reading, Zathura is included. For text editing, Mousepad handles most needs.

What happens to installed apps when I shut down?

In a standard session, all apps installed after boot are lost when you power off — PAI runs in RAM. Only apps built into the ISO survive across sessions. If you configure persistence, you can set up an overlay that preserves apt installs across reboots.

Does PAI include a password manager?

Yes. KeePassXC is pre-installed in all editions. It stores passwords in an encrypted database file on your local machine — nothing syncs to the internet. For the database to persist across sessions, store the .kdbx file on your persistent partition. See KeePassXC on PAI.

Can I run Python scripts that talk to the local AI?

Yes, and this is a common use case. In the Dev edition, Python 3 and pip are pre-installed. Install requests or httpx, then call http://localhost:11434/api/generate directly. The base edition includes Python 3 as well (as a system dependency), though you may need to install pip in a persistent session.

import requests

response = requests.post("http://localhost:11434/api/generate", json={
    "model": "llama3.2:1b",
    "prompt": "Summarize quantum computing in two sentences.",
    "stream": False
})
print(response.json()["response"])

Is there an office suite for working with documents offline?

PAI does not pre-install an office suite. Zathura reads PDFs, Mousepad edits text files, and Tesseract OCR extracts text from images. If you need full word processing or spreadsheet support, install LibreOffice in a persistent session: sudo apt install libreoffice.

What image editing tools are included?

Drawing handles basic image editing — annotations, shapes, cropping, and simple color fills. For screenshot capture and region selection, grim and slurp are built in and bound to Super+Shift+S. imv is available for viewing images. For advanced editing (layers, filters), install GIMP in a persistent session.

How do I know which edition of PAI I'm running?

Open a terminal with Super+Enter and run:

cat /etc/pai-edition

This prints the edition name: base, crypto, dev, or full.