Local Deep Research is excellent for privacy-first research, but the default setup assumes high-end hardware and reliable internet:

1. GPU/RAM requirements: gpt-oss:20b + SearXNG + embeddings needs 16GB+ RAM. Most Ghanaian students run on 8GB laptops or older Chromebooks
2. Internet dependency: SearXNG requires constant connection. Campus WiFi in Accra drops frequently, killing research sessions mid-way
3. Academic paywalls: arXiv/PubMed are open, but students can’t access paywalled journals. No offline corpus for foundational CS/IT textbooks

This means students can’t actually use LDR for their final year projects without cloud credits.