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As a base: The Linux kernel source, GNU software sources and compiler binaries so I can - in theory - write missing software myself. For convenience probably some stable, offline-installable, ready to use distros.

I would probably also archive sources and binaries of day-to-day software like web-browsers (I might still have an intranet to use), office tools, photo management software, audio/video players and all the codecs, etc.

I think that's a solid starting point but im sure I'm missing something important :D

My home servers time to shine

Everyone shitting on me for having a nas with ~ 200tb of storage and tape backups would finally have to eat shit because I’d have the only streaming service in town

I got enough anime to make crunchy roll blush, I have something like 3,000 series of manga and like 8,000 books in my komga server, I got non weeb shit. I archive tons of webpages and youtube channels, terabytes of music, etc.

In a situation like this I could even throw a lemmy instance on it or something. I don’t do that now but I could

Also all my anime has dubs stripped out to save space and the majority of my manga is in Japanese. 英語しか話せない奴らはクソくらえ

So I eschew your 1tb limitation. I have seen this scenario coming. I planned for it. I’m ready for it. There are others like me on lemmy in the home server page, plus if you look on the truenas, proxmox, unraid, etc forums you’ll find even more

FreeBSD ports with distfiles for things really necessary, with dependencies. I guess that would fit in 1TB and leave some for ebooks and music.

Also software RAID is not Frankensteiny at all, neither are storage clusters of Ceph or alternatives.

What those things necessary would encompass, I don't know. I suppose similar to Slackware full installation.

It would all make little sense without the Internet. You'd suddenly find that a year 1995 machine, one year older than me, and a few friendly BBSes are not as unrealistically small as they seem now.

I shall open a pub 🍺🍺🍺

Besides the basics (operating systems, compilers, office, CAD, database, etc software):

• A copy of open street map together with the linked Wikipedia articles, along with the software to view and edit them. I know you said no wikipedia, (since that's pretty much a given), but this is basically the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

• A copy of Godot's editor so people can still make games.

• As many games as I could fit in the remaining space, concentrating on the ones that give you the most bang for your buck in terms of space.

Maps would be the most valuable data.

emulators, keep gaming alive

Wikipedia

I have started to do this and I'm using Docker to host Kiwix. I'm currently using it to provide offline versions of Wikipedia, medical guides and tutorials for various programming languages. My plan is to put essential apps and information on an RPi and provide a broadcast hotspot where anyone can access the info.

I also live on top of a hill, so I'm saving up to put together a solar powered Meshtastic repeater that I can mount to my aerial pole.

Probably just clone and host a pornhub

1. Fire Zeal and Fetch every API documentation listed there
2. Pull latest deepseek models
3. Clone entire debian current repo
4. Clone Firefox, Linux and the gnu coreutils
5. Clone Litecoin and Litewallet
6. Download the most recent dump of Wikipedia
7. Download all the maps and data available today in OSM

That should do for me

Keeping the electricity on long enough to enjoy games or movies is gonna be difficult if you rely on the grid right now.

So maybe archive the electronics stack exchange, and solar/battery installation guides so you can steal it if the neighbors roof.

Open source collaboration will be difficult on mesh, so my contribution would be jailbreaks and cracked versions of softwares. My local government will need it since all their systems run on licensed software 🥲

I'd also get my hands on a bunch of iphone and android jailbreaks, because phone OSes might just stop working in 9 months if they're left unmodified.

Probably guides on how to make a mesh-net and the appropriate hardware to do so. No idea how that's done.

My first thought was debian installer plus everything on a debian mirror. You could get "all" plus "amd64" in 998gb.

However, the majority of that wouldn't be very useful. While a bunch of the stuff on the selfhosted awesome list certainly would be.

The problem is, because this hypothetical scenario is so broad, IDK which things would actually be appropriate.

Nothing, I would just to plant some potatoes instead or something

I need 800 GiB to host a Gentoo distfile mirror. This is what I would do.

Lots of good things already mentioned. So I'll say Shareboxx

Raspberry pi os , it can also be run on non raspberry pis*. all the recommended packages in its menu (libre office?) that should get you a nice os.

Some torrenting software to ensure you can help share it around.

I recently heard of something called a 'Pirate box' which is a WiFi router without a password and storage attached for people to upload and download stuff to / from .

I wouldn't do it myself, but if it was a country town, it could be something similar to a virtual notice board in the pub.

• Might as well get Debian and Ubuntu too.

To start, I’d download nixpkgs. That would cover pretty much anything I could want.

Though I’m sure that person exists here on Lemmy somewhere :D

I feel seen!

In all honesty, I've been doing something somewhat similar for the last 2 decades or so. Originally I was building my archives because I was often away from internet access. Now, though, it's just become habit.

I started with basic first aid and medical texts and whatever other books and reference texts I found interesting. To that I also archive proprietary software and the source code and releases for the open source software I find useful. Add to that ISOs of the distributions I tend to use and I'm at roughly 3TB. I could probably cut that to 2TB if I remove the older Ubuntu and NixOS releases. I'm over 30TB if you include CD and DVD rips.

About the only thing I am missing from my current archives would be a clone of the Ubuntu and NixOS repositories for all of the "glue" dependencies that no one ever thinks of. After that you would just need the hardware to build out the network.

I don't use Web apps/software to begin with, explicitly because I don't live under the illusion that everything will somehow exists forever, exactly the way it is.

I've been homeless, so I know how it is to be an artist without being online all the time. If the tool you use needs to be always online for some reason (and it's not specifically related to the Internet), it's a bad and useless tool.

It's the reason I'm not jumping on the Photopea train until they release a proper installable program.

I'd download my entire GOG library of games. The offline installer versions they offer without GOG Galaxy client.

As much as I dislike Microsoft, the world runs on Excel, so it's got to be near the top of the list.

For myself.. calibre and my ebook collection and all the games I can manage.

I'd be fucked because I work on and use OSS multiple times a day, and have no idea what a distributed maven central looks like

TrashRobot. So i can crate a simple local wireless network and share data with people

I always see a lot of great and diverse solutions for maintaining information and even being self sufficient in the face of some sort of societal collapse and loss of infrastructure. I never see plans mentioned for what to do afterwards. The point being, there seems to be an assumption of either permanence to things like storage and alternative energy sources, or perhaps an implied having to just last a decade or so and things will be rebuilt.

So hypothetical, something happens and things go away, but someone in your community has set up a center of preservation of knowledge that can be tapped into through a mesh network, and everyone has a minimal power setup to use some things to do this and other electronic based work. Now what? Is asking this question too vague since there can be so many scenarios possible and we just have to figure it out from there?

TL;DR - what happens to a post-collapse tech center in the long run since we see all the time that there are limits to even the best storage media and parts wear out even in non-moving solar panels. Mass replacements and salvage are a given, but even that has limits and problems.