this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 16 hours ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago

Yes, it requires hardware

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

@iii @6R1MR34P3R Depends on how good of a setup you want, but you can start for less than €50.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 5 points 16 hours ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
  • 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
[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

Thanks, I already have Jellyfin and HomeAssistant. Will check the others (I know Nextcloud too oc), good summary :)

[–] [email protected] -2 points 15 hours ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (14 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] -3 points 13 hours ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

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