Recently in Spain we have suffered a complete power outage, with no electricity for a long time. Some were able to have power on their computers with generators, solar panels, etc. And I know you can have data connectivity with SDR or HAM radio. But my question here is, what are some good self-host/local offline software that we can have and use for when something like this happens. I know kiwix, and some other for manuals. Please feel free to share the ones you know and love, can be for any type of thing as long as it works completely offline, just name it. Of course for GNU/Linux (using Arch myself BTW). Thanks in advance.
I have my homeserver rsync three Arch mirrors and three Arch ARM mirrors in rotation on three days every week. Thus I have full local repos for these. All my machines are configured to use this local repo. The reason I do this is precisely to be prepared for the inevitable ‘Internet is broken’ scenario.
Since this has seen some interest – here’s how much disk space this opulence costs: Arch x86 repository is 113 Gb and Arch ARM is 123 Gb :)
Yeah, some people don’t like to run with full repo mirrors but keep updated copies of the Debian ISO that can be mounted as repositories at any point:
- https://tadeubento.com/2023/debian-iso-downloads-and-offline-archives/
- https://tadeubento.com/2023/debian-iso-images-as-apt-repositories/
It’s essentially the same, but in another format.
One can also use a cache to hold deb and rpm files requested by the machines. (Works great when running hundreds of systems.)
I like “apt-cacher-ng”. It will do deb and rpm. https://wiki.debian.org/AptCacherNg
https://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~bloch/acng/
Edit: better link
good one thanks, will RTFM for this
This is going to be controversial but…
Linux is not really suited for the post-apocalitic no-internet world, the way the repositories are built and software is packed (almost nothing is static, a lot of dependencies on other packages everywhere) just makes it really impractical and hard to deal with those scenarios. Flatpak / containers and friends even make this situation worse because you can’t easily mirror the repositories and there’s no straightforward way of exporting a Flatpak as a solid file that can be shared around and installed everywhere - the current tool for that doesn’t account architectures and dependencies very well.
Windows however is a much more solid and good option, yes, it’s painful to hear this but in Windows you can get an exe from a friend in a flash drive and it runs as is. Same goes for installers, reinstalling the OS etc. There’s only a couple of .net framework installers that will cover dependencies for 99.99% of stuff in a few MB. The same goes for macOS, however it depends on a lot of software signing nowadays and certificates that can expire and you then have a problem.
Offline repository caches for Linux have been a thing for decades. People absolutely pass binaries to friends.
Flatpac may not be suitable, but that is only one way to get software on Linux.
There are ways to deal with this. There’s AppImage for GUI apps (that replicates the “just get an exe from a friend on a flash drive”) and lots of bundling programs for non-GUI apps (I use
nix-bundlebecause I use Nix, but there are other options too).Lots of distro installers work offline too, by just bringing all the stuff you need as part of the installer.
And one major benefit of Linux is that when stuff does inevitably go wrong, it’s infinitely easier to fix than proprietary garbage.
AppImage suffers from the same problem that Flatpak does, the tool do work offline aren’t really good/solid and won’t save you for sure. It also requires a bunch of very small details to all align and be correct for things to work out.
Imagine the post-apocalyptic scenario, if you’re missing a dependency to get something running, or a driver, or something specific of your architecture that wasn’t deployed by the friend alongside the AppImage / Flatpak (ie. GPU driver) you’re cooked. Meanwhile on Windows it has basic GPU drivers for the entire OS bakes in, or you can probably fish around for an installer as fix the problem. It is way more likely that you’ll find machines with Windows and windows drivers / installer than Linux ones with your very specific hardware configuration.
Meanwhile on Windows it has basic GPU drivers for the entire OS bakes in
this is not true, in fact, most of the machines I have here won’t work with a Windows installer .iso or Windows OS itself and some of my hw don’t even have drivers for it. So yeah no
meanwhile, most GNU/Linux .iso distro installers have drivers already on the .iso itself, including propietary ones
AppImage suffers from the same problem that Flatpak does, the tool do work offline aren’t really good/solid and won’t save you for sure
I’ve been using my laptop in areas without internet for days. It works fine.
It also requires a bunch of very small details to all align and be correct for things to work out.
I have
appimage-runfrom nixpkgs installed, which handles all those details. They are also not too hard to figure out manually should you need to.Imagine the post-apocalyptic scenario, if you’re missing a dependency to get something running, or a driver, or something specific of your architecture that wasn’t deployed by the friend alongside the AppImage / Flatpak (ie. GPU driver) you’re cooked.
GPU drivers are emphatically not part of the AppImage. They are provided by Mesa, which is almost guaranteed to be installed.
Meanwhile on Windows it has basic GPU drivers for the entire OS bakes in, or you can probably fish around for an installer as fix the problem
It’s actually the other way around - if you want your GPU to work properly on a new Windows install, you have to fish around for AMD/NVidia drivers. On Linux Mesa is pretty much pre-installed on all distros.
It is way more likely that you’ll find machines with Windows and windows drivers / installer than Linux ones with your very specific hardware configuration.
LMAO, try moving a windows installation from Ryzen+AMD GPU to Intel+NVidia GPU and let me know how it goes (hint: you will have to manually uninstall, and then install a shit ton of drivers, for which you will need internet).
Meanwhile I’m typing this from a (Ryzen+AMD GPU) desktop which has an SSD from my (Intel+integrated graphics) laptop. When I plugged it in, it booted into sway just fine, with complete GPU support and all, and the only reason I had to update my config is to make it more convenient to use on the desktop.
Linux is not the best “apocalypse” OS, but it sure is better than Windows.
might be true, i won’t discuss that. But im willing to have alternatives, have my own mirrors etc whatever is needed
what I’m not willing to use is propietary software so more than controversial, you are just not being helpfull
you are just not being helpfull
I am. When “shit hits the fan” you want to be as compatible and and frictionless as possible, because at point having a running computer will be a feat on its own and you probably won’t have time/power to deal with software complexities and “ways around issues”. You most likely want to boot a machine from whatever parts are available and get some data out of it or maybe in and move on to hunting or farming. No time to be there fixing xyz package with broken dependencies and whatnot. If someone gives you a flash drive with data it follows the same logic, you want to get to something as quickly as possible.
In Linux there’s also an over-reliance on web-based solutions that can be self-hosted in your system or a 3rd one but that, once again, just adds extra friction that you don’t have with “simple” formats and binaries like pdf, docx and others that at the end of the day are just self contained apps that can be run as is without extra fuzz nor cloud dependencies.
I’m all for Linux, alternative and open-source, but in the situation described you last concern is if you’re running proprietary stuff.
thanks, will crosspost there. I didn’t saw that one
Downloading all of wikipedia for one language is abiut 90GB. Inhave it on a spare drive in case of an outage. That way if I need to research something I can still do.
Doesn’t Kiwix already do this? Or is there any advantage in doing it myself?
You can put together a media server and build a catalogue so you can watch movies and series offline. Maybe not a huge priority in that situation but definitely nice to have.
Jellyfin is a good option for streaming from a media server to other devices. The *arr suite is an option for building the catalogue.
yes, thanks. I already have a server here with Jellyfin, but I recently moved to a new house and have to put it all back again
Spain? check guifi.net ;)
People had LAN Partys playing video games “offline” in the 90s… Setting up a network is easy, the difficulty comes from scaling up to many nodes, and spreading through the geography (e.g. if you were to use antennas for WLAN, they would need a mostly unobstructed vision) which in urban areas gets tricky.
But those “topology” issues can be flattened, e.g. you can always have a raspberry pi (or any device) acting as server in the corner of a neighborhood. A virtual bulletin board, emails, etc. all could be self-hosted locally there and then people could go grab a coffee and consume the local news just like in the middle ages, but with a screen, digital assets and some healthy amount of trolling :P
Navigation on Android: Osmand lets you download and cache OSM data so you can use it offline. Cache is unlimited if you download Osmand via F-Droid.
Meshtastic
Also Reticulum Network Stack! Much more ambitious than Meshtastic.
doesn’t this one needs a specific set of hardware? is it affordable here in Europe? thanks for sharing, I have heard of this for a long time but didn’t get onto it, might look now that this happened
Yes, it requires hardware
@iii @6R1MR34P3R Depends on how good of a setup you want, but you can start for less than €50.
im willing to pay up to €100 more or less
can you recommend a kit or just works hardware for meshtastic?
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- Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks
- Navidrome: Music
- Jellyfin: Movies, videos, audio and books
- Radicale: calendar, contacts and tasks
- Nextcloud: all files and more
- HomeAssistant: for managing the solar panels, battery and other iot
Thanks, I already have Jellyfin and HomeAssistant. Will check the others (I know Nextcloud too oc), good summary :)
If you can get a few hundred watts of electrical power, StarLink is an option for broadband connectivity via satellite when all the local communications are down. Don’t know why, but Star Link reminds me of Sky Net.
sorry, but I’m not willing to pay to that asshole many people here have already generators, solar panels etc and that worked ok here
A piece of software always runs locally. It is in some cases those who needs to communicate with the server fail to deliver the usual function you expect when offline.
Please do not confuse one to another.
And perhaps you can start by complaining which services you are using heavily rely on the server side? General questions attract general answers and IMHO you are better off just search on the internet.
I am aware of this, but neither is English my primary language (so I wasn’t able of properly stating that) neither im asking for specific type of software, as you say this is indeed a general question asking for general software, I said to share whatever you like and use, as long as it can be of any use when there is a power outage. I don’t need any specifics. And I plan to share the responses to other people in fediverse of Spain that may need it here.
