offline computing

Imagine a scenario in which the whole internet or the infrastructure in your area collapses. For GNUSLASHLinux users I imagine this quite troublesome due to its interdependence on libraries. What could we we do in such a situation? How would you even locally transfer packages between different machines which may even use different distributions? You can't just copy self contained executables over like you would on Windows. Are Flatpaks and AppImages the solution to this?

packages aren't as distro specific as you might at first assume, not too hard to slap a debian package onto an arch machine or vice versa. Ganoo Plus Linux is generally speaking Ganoo Plus Linux. users of source based distros also will have significant amount of sourcecode just in storage generally speaking and can make it available to locals who need to build new systems or update and patch software. most people have a few ISOs sitting around so installing new systems isnt hard. app image style packages probably would be handy too but they seem most interested in helping i.e. big awkward packages like krita and its dependancies, as opposed to basic system elements.

>Are Flatpaks and AppImages the solution to this? Yeah. Totally can be. My suggestion may be pretty improbable, but if someone has enough connections/contacts and the know-how, one could host their own collection of packages through a dead drops like system? Assuming that it's just a whole part of the world that collapses. I imagine academic institutions would be the firsts to implement something like it in their local area.

>For GNUSLASHLinux users I imagine this quite troublesome due to its interdependence on libraries. I imagine this quite troublesome for anybody that depends on trade to survive. So, like, basically everybody. But I'll bite. How to re-use code in a low-bandwidth environment? Without upgrading the bandwidth. Assuming everyone still gets to eat. There is some cost to coordination effort itself. This is avoided by the use of flatpaks, appimages. You'll probably end up wasting some bandwidth downloading code you already have somewhere else, but you also don't need to worry about coordinating to find the particular code you need. By the same token, people will likely favor use-case specific distros like BioLinux, LinuxCNC, etc. If your computing mission is to actually do a thing, like manufacture parts (rather than something self-serving puter wise), these'll do the job fine. The last 20% of functionality typically supplied by additional software may be hacked together by small groups or individuals where required, several times the world over. >>64574 has the right idea then. Educational institutions might let you... walk over... to download some packages, if you're involved with vital industry or something like that. They already host many repositories. What about something that us, the {lo,u}sers can do? Engage in datahoarding. Keep around systems which run on simpler sources of electricity, consuming less power, with leaner software. Keep these in an emp-proof box somewhere. Realistically speaking, if only the internet goes out, people will rebuild it in some form, depending on the nature of the collapse, ranging from radio meshnets to just switching the servers back on. If all the infrastructure collapses, you probably really shouldn't be thinking about this, at least not before covering all of your other bases.

We need infrared laser-based meshnets- lasers are great, high-bandwidth, low latency, don't waste power, no regulated frequency band, range of several miles. It's like a cable going through the air.

I have a local mirror of my distro that I sync every two weeks or so *shrug*

>>64572 Arch users would had problems but Debian Gentoo BSD users would survive fine.

Much harder for meshnets to go down due to lack of centralization

You have all these cool flatpaks and packages, but you can't even open a map to find a nearest fallout shelter since Google servers are unreachable. Way to go, freetards.

Glad I am not part of the niggercattle. All I need is a typewriter and maybe an basic calculator.

>>64572 you wont be able to do fug all because UN*X is literally made for networked computing. good luck getting even 20% of your soykaf to start without a network connection (10 different text editors does not count) and yes, dependencies need a security update every 2 days especially because any functioning UN*X system has 35 dependencies that do the same thing and they all have string injection vulns because they're made by LARPing kiddies

>>64572 Install something like Slackware or a *BSD (I recommend OpenBSD) that comes with a ton of programs pre-installed. Make sure to also get the source code as well.

>>64612 > my image organizer works > my ebook organizer works > my document viewer works > my image editor works > RetroArch and all my WINE games work > my music player works I think I've passed the 20% threshold. Nice bait, though.

But what security issues? If there’s no internet there are no attackers?

>>65382 the internet isn't the only way to attack people. Airgapping doesn't translate to 'unhackable'

>>64612 >Need network to do security updates to defent against threats from the network.

>>64572 >oh anon you still have MPV's source code laying around, don't you? *gives her the DVD* >thanks anon... we can watch Yugioh later on Damn anon why do I wanna live in a world now where you have to distribute packages IRL.

>>64572 My desktop is actually a server. It has a lot of things backed up on it, from sources, to ISOs, to various forms of media. >>65394 I.. actually do.

>>64579 >Arch users would had problems Why tho? Which would be the bestest no internet distro in your opinion?

>interdependence on libraries It's not that, its more being dependent on repositories being available online. For mirroring deb based repositories there is Aptly, https://www.aptly.info), amongst other software tools.

"El Paquete Semanal ("The Weekly Package") or El Paquete is a one terabyte collection of digital material distributed since around 2008 on the underground market in Cuba as a substitute for broadband Internet." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal

>>66278 not him, but hands down slackware. everything is included on the dvd image, and you can actually in theory download every build script and original source file on slackbuilds.org for redistribution on more dvds.

>>66284 IDK about where you are but I dont even have DVD drives around here, letalone spare DVDs to burn. My post collapse file sharing would all be local net or usb.

>>66285 well, then s/dvd/usb/g

>>66284 I almost forgot about Slackware, but you really convinced me to look into it and I think it might be an interesting experience. I'm planning to have it replace Manjaro on my Thinkpad which is pretty much my main computer. I've had the feeling for a long time, typing pacman -Syu all the time and having it just work, I'm making it too easy on myself. (living with the autisms is not easy, let me tell you something) At the least I might learn something from Slackware, it being pretty much the origins of Linux. Let's see how this goes. Thank you anon :)

>>66296 Slackware is not hard to maintain but it makes a very good offline computer (as opposed to arch). If you want to install slackbuilds (packages not available in the official dvd image), you have to maintain the dependencies yourself or install a third party package manager. It's a nice distro to setup and forget, everything you need is already installed by default. You can also try debian stable, the community fork from the defunct centos or openbsd (very good manpages and other useful help guides made by them, you should be able to configure everything without having to google it).

>>66312 That no internet stuff is just a gimmick. But you gotta think forward. Our civilization is on the verge of collapse. I want to have the possibility to soykafpost into a text editor and read my doujin manga while the rest of the world is burning. I'm already hoarding tars and isos. >You can also try debian stable I already run that on physical hardware. But it's kinda boring and the packages are sometimes very outdated. My concern is having something unique, something I could learn from about the lower workings of Linux/Unix. Like the saying goes: 'when you run debian you learn about debian, when you run redhat, you learn about redhat, when you run slackware, you learn about how linux works'. It is interesting because I would learn about dependency management and all that stuff that is all automatic nowadays. I wonder why it isn't recommended more often as minimalist/educational distro nowadays like gentoo and arch is. >It's a nice distro to setup and forget, You think I could have this replace Arch/Manjaro as daily driver? Surprisingly I saw the binaries on SlackBuilds.org are quite recent, more so than the most recent debian stable. I'd want something similar to my arch setup: full disk encryption, MBR/BIOS, LVM, BTRFS, Snapper for automatic system snapshots, VirtualBox for running proprietary garbage software. I've never tried any distro with SysvInit. Could I theoretically replace the init with OpenRC? Also could I get pacman as package manager? Sorry for bogging you with those questions. I'll try it out soon enough on physical hardware anyways. Got enough spare machines lying around.

>>66318 It's a been a while since I had Slack but there is a fork of apt, the netbsd pkgrsc and sbopkg, the later was the most popular and what you should use with the slackbuilds packages. You also have the current branch if you want more updated software but it's not nearly as bleeding edge as arch. The init system is ok, why do you want to change it? It's very easy to learn. "Learning linux" is a meme, install slackware if you want a stable distro with good security and a different approach.

Most people without internet: > ZOMG how do I buy things how do I socialize how do I get my salary how do I work how do I entertain myself how do I boil an egg how do I fix my jacket's zipper Lainon without internet: > How do I update VLC I'd use debian and keep the software repos on SD or USB drives, together with cloned git repos. Also don't forget to back up your whole OS partition as an ISO, mirror it to a bootable flash drive and things like that, so in case of trouble you can go back to a previous image instead of full reinstalling. Also datahoarding + catfish for searching through the collection (mlocate being the 1337 alternative). >>66278 >>Arch users would had problems >Why tho? Not him, but if you don't update & upgrade arch for a couple months and apply a lot of updates in one go, things may break and you may have to reinstall. Happened to me a couple times, until I understood that you're supposed to upgrade often, so you upgrade a small bunch of programs at a time. That said, if you have proper backups then reinstalling should be trivial. >>65394

I think whatever you do you're going to want sources saved, and ideally a lot of them. enough to build a whole system from scratch. if you do have like, all the packages required to build your functional desktop gentoo system then you're doing pretty well. updating will be a pain but thats just a question of skilled man hours to change the programs, and not having to rebuild the whole dang thing from scratch without even a c compiler. flatpacks & appimages might be handy in a world where everybuddy is working on random different systems/cant update but I dont see that being too much of a problem. big community can figure out what they have and standardize more or less, if you have a big community. >>66322 >reinstalling should be trivial. yeah I think this is a big point. also lets be serious I don't think you're going to be updating your kernel that much in this scenario, or any of the big main parts of the system most likely. you get something stable and functional once and then you more or less leave it be (at least for your main system). no more pacman eating your kernel modules.

>>66322 >if you have proper backups then reinstalling should be trivial. Yeah. I've got a clonezilla image of a vanilla artix install and I mentioned BTRFS and Snapper before so I can always roll back to the most recent backup. With btrfs-send one can also incrementally backup all the snapshots to an external drive

>>64610 Why not a notepad and an abacus?

>>66326 why not just your fingers and some bits of string?

How do you guys deal with compiling code when offline? I know this question is kinda absurd, but I genuinely cannot get any code I download to compile unless I look up the exact specific steps, even when a README file is available, and those are found online. Do you guys just learn how to compile each and every piece of software you have, and memorize/write down the exact instructions for them? Am I just too inexperienced at the moment to get this stuff, and will over time generally be able to compile the stuff I need? I feel like that's not possible, with how every piece of software I've tried to compile make it seem like you just need to run cmake, but then get spewed out some dependency errors, and those same dependencies require compiling, and give you errors as well, and so on and so forth.

>>68204 I've worked to package some softwares for minor distros and have gotten pretty good (not perfect but pretty good) at navigating different build systems and readme's such that many programs I can build and install just by guessing and maybe a little trial/error, but it took me some practice and a lot of hair pulling and quite a few hours of smashing my head against brick walls to get here. Additionally I have the normal and community repos for archlinux snapshotted (just clone the git repos) so for anything in that I can just check how they do it and its very easy to adapt that to my own non arch system. https://github.com/archlinux (the svntogit repos in here are what I'm talking about) more obscure softwares can be tricky, some are just packaged by the developer in awful ways, sometimes you have to go in and patch C code or move around libraries and fix things, but I have a lot of experience fixing linux issues through trial and error so it just gets to be old hat after a while. when in doubt take a nap.

>>64572 >Imagine a scenario in which the whole internet or the infrastructure in your area collapses. I run nixos and I have ownership over every single piece of software that I run. I have a few backups, a few bootable pendrives with my exact setup replicated. A few pendrives with backups + ventoy ready to boot and reinstall everything. I have my own gitlab running and synchronizing my code with upstream repositories both by pulling from repositories that I depend on and pushing my code to my repositories. I can just get a pendrive with a bunch of .patch files that were digitally signed by the authors of tools that I use and keep life going. Nowadays tech removes ownership over your own system. We need to fight to get it back. Is comfy to just use cloud, not have copies or backups, etc... But what you give up in the process? Your freedom.

Shout out to CollapseOS, a Forth OS "and a collection of tools and documentation with a single purpose: preserve the ability to program microcontrollers through civilizational collapse." Also DuskOS: "an operating system designed to be maximally useful during (...) the first stage of collapse

>>64572 there's a major proposal to turn KDE into an offline computing system. this would keep copies of your data on all your computers and use CRDTs or the like to synchronize between them. if you're involved with KDE and interested in it, vote on it as the future direction for KDE https://phabricator.kde.org/T15624

>>64577 "Going through the air" "through" The atmosphere is the main problem with this, Lotta wasted photons just getting trapped and refracted.

>>70530 woah cant wait to have 6 billion lines of code to store some data in glorified text files

>>65395 this is incredibly based, I should start looking into setting up something similar on my nas, any tips on setting up a mirror?

>>64572 Literally just keep a few isos of whatever you need (debian, artix, debloated windows 10) and make proper backups of your stuff. If soykaf goes down you install debian, or if it's really bad windows - it's offline anyways.

>>72513 >If soykaf goes down you install debian, or if it's really bad windows I can hardly imagine a scenario where things are so bad I would want to become a windows user, even if piracy is now legal. The problem with windows isn't just that its soykaf, its also soycalf. You're also missing the terribly obvious fact that most linux iso's do not include terribly important things like compilers and sources. It would kinda suck to not be easily able to rebuild/tweak things without learning to fix the bins directly. 'Backups of your things' should include enough to recompile your system and all the packages you can imagine wanting to use, plus a few other things.

many people in the thread suggest installing slackware, gentoo, debian, arch... but i dont think that for this kind of situation (infastructure and global supply chain collapse), using linux might not make the most sense because the linux kernel (and many userspace software) is extremely complex (several million [in linux's case, tens of millions] lines of code) someone has 2 projects dedicated to making an operating system for this; http://collapseos.org/ and its successor (sort of) http://duskos.org/ he argues that modern OSes (including linux/bsd) are too complex to work with in a situation like this, tho he also says (http://collapseos.org/why.html) that "if you're not technical, you should indeed just use Linux and hope for the best." many people in the thread suggest hoarding linux software (binaries and/or source) but wouldnt dependency hell prevent this? some people apparently also keep linux software repositories which makes more sense i guess. also what would be ideal hardware for this scenario? maybe a sbc/mini-pc with low power consumption and customizablity?

>>75110 >forth >tui >autistic loser soykaf That's obviously for efficiency reasons. >Dusk uses 180KB of RAM on a PC Tell us what programming language you've used to write an OS in 180KB of RAM. >you can use phones too What are you going to do with a smartphone when you've got no internet, no app store and a locked bootloader.

>>75110 Ghetto world problems

>>75104 The answer is that you'll have to somehow produce your own processors and other electronics after a while, so it's probably a better idea to hoard books or really old tech that makes it easier to reverse engineer

>How would you even locally transfer packages between different machines which may even use different distributions? I've seen Debian offer ISO's that are just repositories full of common software packages, you put the disc in and then treat it as a repository as if you're adding someone's PPA. When I visited Russia in the mid-2000's, I remember coming across software stores that sold pirated movies and games; some of them sold discs full of installers for free software targeted at people with either no or limited internet, which there was a lot of over there in the mid-2000's. So in the event of a (prolonged) internet collapse, I imagine stores like this would pop up where people who have access to the internet from the outside world would make repo DVD's and sell them.

this thread is inspiring me to data hoard source code. lol.

I download all the Debian ISO images and mount them as loop devices to use as package repos. I can spin up a http server to serve them over a lan if needed. Should be fine until soykaf gets too bad and computers are used as doorstops anyways.

If the internet collapses in my area I'm just killing myself, fuarrrk off