Our Machine Learning in Linux series focuses on apps that make it easy to experiment with machine learning. All the apps covered in the series can be self-hosted.
Many Linux distributions make installing apps reasonably straightforward. A good package manager makes installation of many Linux programs simple with the package manager handling a program’s dependencies. But distros’ package managers rarely include any AI apps. Installing AI apps in Linux is often a non-trivial experience.
Stability Matrix is a desktop application. It’s a multi-platform package manager and inference UI for AI image generation. It works with Stable Diffusion and Flux.
Stable Diffusion is a deep learning text-to-image diffusion model capable of generating photo-realistic images given any text input. In seconds you can create stunning artwork. Stable Diffusion uses a kind of diffusion model, called a latent diffusion model.
There are many high quality Stable Diffusion Web UI packages available. We’ve published reviews for some of them including Fooocus, InvokeAI, Stable Diffusion web UI. But there are many others available.
Installation
Some of the Machine Learning apps we’ve explored to date have complex installations. However, this is not the case for Stability Matrix as it has the simplest installation possible. The project provides an AppImage for Linux (as well as binaries for macOS and Windows).
For Linux, download the compressed AppImage, uncompress it, and make it executable with the command:
$ chmod u+x StabilityMatrix.AppImage
Launch the program. Next you’ll need to agree to the program’s license agreement and choose a data directory.
There’s the option to share analytics (which sends anonymous data about features used, operating systems versions, types of packages installed). Data sent is not associated to individuals and doesn’t include personal data or other sensitive information. Or just decline to share.
Next, choose a a Stable Diffusion package to install.
While this package is installing, we can also download models.
Next page: Page 2 – In Operation and Summary
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction and Installation
Page 2 – In Operation and Summary