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Thought experiment: what could use to keep yourself busy, entertained, or even productive on a desert island?

This is kind of a tweak on the once-in-a-while favorite apps questions (my top 10, program closest to perfection).

Why is this relevant?

• I've had a tendency to download, test, and evaluate TONS of programs that make very minor changes to minor issues. At the same time, I've been extremely satisfied over time with all the work I've put into GIMP and LibreOffice, the energy I put into them having paid off many times over. Maybe you have a program that was a little odd or had a learning curve that you now use frequently?
• What's entertaining and involving are more than just games. What programs really occupy the mind? The Powder Toy is part game, part experiment, while ArtRage got me making all sorts of creative stuff. If you list a game, it should have a high replay value.

Anyway, bonus points for a short list, and you don't need maintenance, security, or internet applications.

Hmm... interesting.

I haven't really thought about this.

I'd probably grab:

• Some type of portable, offline Wikipedia app (like Kiwix)
• A server of some kind (like Uniform Server, MobaXterm) and some offline documentation on a bunch of languages I've been wanting to learn over the past few years, but have been too busy / lazy to learn
• A distraction-free writing program (like q10) to work on my novella that I've never written before
• Perhaps a music-writing app, but there aren't any decent ones in TPFC at the moment!

Saying some audio or video app is too predictable

freakazoid wrote: Some type of portable, offline Wikipedia app (like Kiwix)

Thanks for pointing me to this. Really interesting, if limited at the moment to Wikipedia files. Few notes:

• Some great ZIMs to start with.
• Strongly recommend standard NTFS compression as it collapses 30% of it's original size (from 42 to 29 megs). Additionally, as a reader program, the compression shouldn't affect performance.
• It's not immediately obvious but this is a tabbed viewer.

Edit: the official thread for KiwixPortable that I completely forgot about

Current list of Desert Island apps that I've put together since I posted about this last year:

• Powder Toy
• Dwarf Fortress
• Kiwix with Wikipedia downloads
• Marble Portable
• ArtRage
• GIMP
• If you're into animation, Basic: StickFigure Animator / RealWorld Paint ... Advanced: Blender and Sculptris

Bit of a stretch but might fit

• gPodder + VLC - since it can download a TON of podcasts and other entertainment stuff and I'd prefer VLC to view them
• LibreOffice - I've slowly made my way through the million or so features and items inside this program
• PhotoScape - this has a ton of fun little tweaks, features, and edits inside of it. I just found out a few months ago that it'll do photos with a "polaroid" type frame around them.
• Audacity / Wavosaur - for playing with audio

Old thread update:

Some related suggestions:

• When the Internet is down
• Grabbing whole websites
• Video downloader for educational videos (untested)

A few additions to this old thread ...

Calibre. Desert Island apps are about having everything locally on your computer, and this is definitely one of those apps. You'll be a lot better off with some eBooks for this thing to read or edit, but all the search functions mean you could dig into other documentation, which brings me to ...

Desert Island Operation System: MX Linux. The distro includes a lot of integrated documentation and well-written explanations. If you're on a desert island, you're after all not going to be able to check search engines for background or explanations. MX seems to do a good job of keeping everything local.

On a related note, I also found a a post that talks through the design guidelines around making an offline-first app (another HN item)

I've been running into many situations where network connections are a lot less reliable than people expect. In particular, my current position effectively requires Google Docs for almost any work I do, and there's really no plan if someone in the cycle loses connectivity. We all just grind to a halt.

DELETED

FYI, a couple of solar panels -- or a smallish wind turbine -- now allows anyone to do just that...

Total Commander - yes, I know, it is shareware - but I can't live without it!
WinRAR - again, I can't live without it.
TreePad Business Edition - same as above ... it's my all-in-one micro-office!
Ashampoo Office Free
PSPad
PhotoFilter
MyPaint
Dynamic Draw
Dia
SSuite CleverNote PIM
SumatraPDF
IrfanView
MPC-HC
Calc - the classic from XP
FreeCiv