A more practical strategy would be maintaining simple yet complete computing environments that can operate on salvaged hardware. NetBSD is a good example: it supports a wide range of hardware, has a relatively straightforward codebase, and provides a full source-based system with a usable graphical userland, with a wide variety of tools available.
In a “collapse computing” context, it is far more plausible to repair and reuse an x86-compatible machine than to rely on extremely minimal custom setups that can barely run a Forth interpreter. With salvaged x86 hardware, one could install a robust OS like NetBSD and immediately run a broad set of existing tools, which is likely to be far more useful than rebuilding a software ecosystem from near-zero on constrained microcontrollers.
This is why having a NetBSD and pkgsrc mirror is my approach to collapse computing instead of fantasizing on building from scratch.
As long as we have working modern machines, self-contained modern open source OSes, NetBSD being one, are good choices.
One problem there is with such system is their overall complexity. Sure, you can use them, and they're pretty flexible for the user. However, when necessity forces you to crack the kernel open, the learning curve is pretty big.
For example, let's imagine a computer with a broken SATA controller. How would NetBSD behave on it? Hard to say, NetBSD developers don't develop with that target machine in mind. Usually, when you have such a machine, you replace it or repair it. But what if you can't? Maybe you'll have to play in the kernel to manage to do something with that machine, route around it. Maybe it will work, but maybe you'll be stuck, and maybe that in that particular situation, it's going to have tragic consequences.
And that's kind of what Dusk OS (http://duskos.org/) is about.
These two aims are diametrically opposed.
Compare performance per watt, P4, to Centrino, to M3 for example.
Btw. books rules in apocalypse. Just print them on some platinium paper and voila!
AI can't destroy them (yet).
Even when cellular communications and wifi are no longer useful, having the entirety of wikipedia in a solar-rechargeable device strikes me as incredibly valuable. The copy I took last year is about 103GB.
I think about collapse more after encountering their writing. What it means for us, what it means for the people after us, what we owe them.
EDIT: ha, confused with https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/uxn.html
I think it's worth reading the some of the rest of their site if you have time. If you look at this page and are about to crap on it on HN, take a bit and read collapse and goals and see if you have a more nuanced view of who they are and what they're doing.
Hundred Rabbits pops up here pretty frequently and people mostly have good things to say, how can anyone dislike them, they're an oasis in a desert full of AI crap these days. I always end up going down some rabbit hole (no pun intended) on their site.