Question: How to install Khoj in Windows?

[Liong1976]

Hi,

First of all, thank you for making this awesome plugin.

FYI, I am not a coder and know nothing about computer programming.

How to install this plugin in Windows, especially in this part? Could you please give me a step-by-step guide?

I appreciate your help.

[debanjum]

Hi @Liong1976, if you want to use the khoj obsidian plugin follow these instructions.
For more detailed instructions, see below:

1. Open windows command prompt by searching for "command prompt" from your windows start menu
2. Paste the following command in the command prompt: pip install khoj-assistant && khoj --no-gui and hit Enter
3. Wait until you see something like below screenshot in your command prompt
   
4. Now (re-)Install the Khoj Obsidian Plugin and wait ~5 minutes (while khoj indexes your notes)
5. Finally follow these instructions to use Khoj from Obsidian

P.S: I'm moving this issue into a q&a discussion

[Liong1976]

Yeay, finally, it works! Thank you so much @debanjum for your patience! I do appreciate it.

[debanjum]

That is awesome! Your perseverance to get khoj working finally paid off 💫. Hope the tool proves useful for you 🙏

[Liong1976]

For me, the most beneficial is Find Similar Notes. I haven't found that Search with Khoj so helpful.

Another thing, I still can't open the Notes showing in the result. I pressed Enter and also click the notes. But it can't open the notes.

[debanjum]

For me, the most beneficial is Find Similar Notes. I haven't found that Search with Khoj so helpful.

Oh interesting. Is that because the search results aren't relevant? If so, some things to try improve that:

• Hit Ctrl+Enter after you've entered your query in the search modal. This should show more relevant results first.
• Ensure you're using longer, natural language queries. So use "the name of my dog" rather than "dog".
• If you want to search for entries that include/exclude a specific word in it, you can add word filters to your query. E.g my favorite animal +"dog" or my favorite animal -"slug"

Another thing, I still can't open the Notes showing in the result. I pressed Enter and also click the notes. But it can't open the notes.

Oh thanks for letting me know. That sounds like a bug in the code. Let me look into what could be causing it.

[Liong1976]

Thanks for the advice.

You are welcome!

[jasmeetchadha]

ok, so I installed python and pip command installed the backend... but seems backend still doesnt work. And khoj url (http://localhost:8000) doesnt open anything

[debanjum]

Based on your other comments, it seems like the khoj backend hasn't been installed yet. It'd be great if you can share screenshots of what you see after you've run the command to start the khoj backend in the cmd prompt

[jasmeetchadha]

[jasmeetchadha]

Thanks! look forward to that integration.

I am not in the woods with coding but would it at all be possible to do the question/answering and chat on the desktop itself? Ie running inference locally on my cpu/GPU?

There are two benefits

1. cost
2. privacy

[debanjum]

Would it at all be possible to do the question/answering and chat on the desktop itself? Ie running inference locally on my cpu/GPU?

Yeah, I have to still evaluate if an offline model can perform to a satisfactory level for question answering. I'll try include the option to choose between an offline and online model for chat.

Some pros for using online models (e.g GPT):

1. I expect GPT type models to be much better at chat than offline models. (For search, offline models perform surprisingly well)
2. While everyone's spending appetite is different, the cost of just using GPT for chat isn't actually that much now
3. Online models or services make access via phones easy. Being able to search, chat etc from a phone is really useful.

Some cons:

1. Privacy of course, is an unavoidable tradeoff if GPT is chosen for chat
2. The ability to search, chat etc offline is great for reliability. It's not fun to have an integral part of your thinking go completely offline (e.g on a plane or in the mountains). Having some kind of graceful degradation for chat in offline mode could reduce this pain point.

[jasmeetchadha]

agree with the tradeoffs. Personally I dont mind the limitations of offline model.

If you dont mind, I would have a few questions w.r.t. deployment of these models and how they work online vs offline. Would you mind chatting about them on phone or messaging? Not sure how to do it over github.

[debanjum]

agree with the tradeoffs. Personally I dont mind the limitations of offline model.

The option to configure this should allow you to choose 🙂

If you dont mind, I would have a few questions w.r.t. deployment of these models and how they work online vs offline. Would you mind chatting about them on phone or messaging? Not sure how to do it over github.

Sure, don't mind. Maybe DM me on Twitter? My username on it is same as my github username

[jasmeetchadha]

Super, sent you a follow request there