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Using Deepseek r1 in Visual Studio Code for free.

Varnit Sharma on January 26, 2025

With the rapid advancement in Large Language Models (LLMs), Deepseek-r1 has emerged as a top contender. Matching the performance of the GPT-o1 mode...
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Yair Even Or •

DeepSeek cut-off date is end of 2023, which is ancient compared to Gemini 2.0 (August 2024).

It is imperative to have a recent cut-off date for front-end related work or when querring anything about recent things.

This is why I will NOT use it.

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R Steadman •

On the other hand, Gemini is rubbish, so there's that.

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Amjad Abujamous •

Agreed, based on personal experience.

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Brandon • • Edited

What can you expect? its free lol

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Reid Lai •

Gemini is BERT which is bidirectional model not best for Q&A usage like other decoder only model, e.g. GPT , llama , etc

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yaireo profile image
Yair Even Or • • Edited

So how do you explain thousands of people had rated it so highly (for coding)?
I don't think they are all Google workers who are trying to boost their own product by rating it.

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BestCodes •

r1 comes with a lot of variants:

Image description

The 1.5b variant could very easily run on a weak or older device, and the 8b variant works fine on my device.

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Elliot Brenya sarfo •

I am running deepseek-r1 on my old intel macbook

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Pravin Jadhav • • Edited

for windows follow ;


: Setting Up Deepseek-r1 (Using Windows CMD)

  1. Install Ollama

    • Download Ollama from the official website.
    • Run the downloaded file and complete the setup.
  2. Download the Deepseek-r1 Model

    • Open CMD and run this command:
     ollama pull deepseek-r1
    
  • To test if the model is working, use this command:

     curl http://localhost:11434/api/generate -d "{\"model\": \"deepseek-r1:latest\", \"prompt\": \"Why is the sky blue?\"}"
    
  • If you see output in the terminal, Deepseek-r1 is ready to go!


** Setting Up the Continue.dev Extension**

  1. Install Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

  2. Install the Continue.dev Extension

    • Open VS Code and go to the Extensions Marketplace.
    • Search for "Continue.dev" and install it.
  3. Connect Deepseek-r1 to Continue.dev

    • Open the Continue.dev extension.
    • Click the model selection button at the bottom-left corner.
    • Select "Ollama" and choose the "Deepseek-r1" model.

: Using Deepseek-r1

Now you can use Deepseek-r1’s features directly in VS Code:

  • Autocomplete: Get smart suggestions while writing code.
  • Code Refactoring: Ask the AI to optimize or rewrite your code.
  • Code Explanations: Understand what your code does with AI help.

: Why Choose Deepseek-r1?

  • Logical Reasoning: Makes smarter decisions using logical tree reasoning.
  • Transformer Technology: Excels in code generation tasks.
  • Local Execution: Runs on your machine for better privacy and faster responses.

: WhatsApp Status Message

"Deepseek-r1: Smarter than GPT, excelling in reasoning and code generation. 🚀

DeepseekR1 #AI #Coding #WindowsCMD"


Start using Deepseek-r1 in your workflow and enjoy smarter, faster coding! 🥂
(hashnode.com/@askpravinjadhav)

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leob profile image
leob •

Most obvious question: why would you use this instead of CoPilot? or am I comparing apples and oranges ;-)

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Yair Even Or •

There was a better guide a few days ago already:

dev.to/shayy/run-deepseek-locally-...

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Vinayak Mishra •

Hey Varnit, had a question for you after seeing this. How good is deepseek in terms of hallucinations, as yesterday night I was reading on LLM hallucination detection.

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keyr Syntax • • Edited

What I don't understand is that how come a small startup is able to build LLM model that beats chatgpt? Even Tech giants like Google or Elon Musk didn't build LLM model that can beat chatgpt. All of a sudden a small Chinese company comes up with LLM model superior than OpenAI's chatgpt. Did they use a LLM recipe which OpenAI doesnot know?Guys if there is something i missed here, please enlighten me😊

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Reid Burton •

Don't you have to have a pc of decent memory & processing capibilities to do this?

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Varnit Sharma •

not really there a variants with parameters they are trained on below 16B params most of the domestic use machines can handle

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Reid Burton •

Huh... I did not know that.

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leob •

"A company you cannot trust" - DeepSeek is Chinese, does your "data" go straight to the Communist Party? ;-)

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PatriciaThompson •

Deepseek R1 in VS Code for free? That’s a game-changer! 🚀 Have you tried it yet? Curious to know how it compares to other AI coding assistants like Copilot or Codeium. firekirinus.xyz/

 
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Nguyễn Anh Nguyên •

Yes

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MAJD 333 •

thank u 💖

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Siraw Tadesse • • Edited

How can we use it???

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Muhammed Rahoof VP •

Nice🔥

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keyr Syntax •

Is it completely free?

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Arun Muthupalaniappan •

Yes

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Taichi-S •

For me still "cursor" is better option to implement software.
That autocomplete experience is wonderful.

But if I build some new software from scratch, then maybe this can work better than "cursor".

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Taichi-S • • Edited

I mean reactivity is needed to implement existed software.
Considering the article below, I think cursor is hybrid ai agent, reactive and deliberative.
geeksforgeeks.org/reactive-vs-deli...