Independent Computing means having meaningful control over the technology you use every day—your hardware, software, files, data, workflows, and creative tools.
It does not mean rejecting modern technology. It means choosing systems that remain useful, understandable, repairable, and under your direction.
At Dan Peters Designs, that includes:
- Repairable and reusable hardware
- Open and interoperable systems
- Local-first and self-hosted tools
- User ownership of files and data
- Long-lasting devices
- Transparent workflows
- AI-assisted creation with human direction
- Less dependence on subscriptions and locked ecosystems
This hub connects the principles, guides, learning paths, knowledge collections, projects, tools, and experiments that put those ideas into practice.
Why Independent Computing Matters
Modern technology often trades long-term control for short-term convenience. Devices become difficult to repair, useful software moves behind subscriptions, files become tied to particular platforms, and working hardware is pushed aside by unnecessary upgrades.
Independent Computing asks a different question:
What if our technology were designed around longevity, transparency, repairability, portability, and user choice?
A healthy computing environment should allow you to:
- Access your files without maintaining a subscription
- Export your data in useful formats
- Repair or replace hardware when practical
- Choose when an upgrade is actually necessary
- Continue important work when the internet is unavailable
- Understand where important applications store their data
- Change tools without rebuilding your entire digital life
Not every application must be offline, open source, or self-hosted. The goal is not ideological purity. The goal is understanding your dependencies and making deliberate choices about which ones are worth accepting.
Technology should remain useful, understandable, adaptable, and human.
Core Principles
Repairability
Useful devices should remain maintainable, understandable, and repairable whenever practical.
Repairability can mean replacing a failed component, upgrading storage or memory, installing a lighter operating system, finding another use for older equipment, or simply documenting how a system was assembled.
Repair does more than save money. It extends the useful life of hardware, reduces unnecessary waste, and helps people understand the technology they depend on.
Learn more through Right to Repair.
Open Systems
Open systems make it easier to inspect, modify, connect, repair, and preserve technology over time.
That can include:
- Open-source software
- Open and portable file formats
- Self-hosted services
- Interoperable tools
- Documented configurations
- Workflows that can be moved between systems
An open system does not have to be completely disconnected from commercial software or online services. The important question is whether you can understand the system, export your work, and replace individual parts without losing everything around them.
Explore practical options in the Software Toolbox and Home Node sections.
Ownership
Digital ownership means having meaningful control over your devices, files, data, workflows, and computing environment.
You should be able to:
- Find where your important data is stored
- Make independent backup copies
- Export information in useful formats
- Move projects between applications
- Replace a service without losing your work
- Decide when and how your system changes
Ownership is not only a legal idea. It is also a matter of file organization, documentation, repairability, and recovery planning.
For a practical example, read The Smart Four-Drive File Architecture.
Creative Experimentation
Not every project needs to become a commercial product.
Some projects exist to test an idea, explore a possibility, challenge an assumption, learn a skill, or inspire something better later. An experiment can still be valuable even when it remains unfinished.
Independent Computing encourages people to open the case, inspect the software, test unfamiliar tools, reuse neglected hardware, and learn through building.
See the original system and project story in How It Started.
AI-Assisted Workflows
AI can help with brainstorming, research, organization, drafting, prototyping, troubleshooting, and technical experimentation.
At Dan Peters Designs, AI is treated as a creative and technical assistant—not a replacement for human judgment, responsibility, or direction.
The person remains responsible for deciding what should be built, checking whether the result is accurate, and determining how the technology is used.
Explore related work in the AI article archive.
Explore Related Topics
Independent Computing connects hardware, software, privacy, self-hosting, creative work, and practical experimentation. Choose the area that best matches what you want to do.
Knowledge & Learning
Independent Computing is also about understanding and preserving what we learn. DPD documents projects, follows learning paths in public, and packages useful reference material so knowledge is easier to keep, revisit, and share.
Follow Novice to Knowledge →
Browse the MT Open Knowledge Library →
Right to Repair
Explore repair culture, hardware ownership, device longevity, component reuse, and the right to understand and maintain the equipment you own.
Software Toolbox
Find Linux applications, local-first tools, creative software, utilities, and self-hosted platforms that support practical independent workflows.
Home Node
See the archived original home-node build that started the DPD independent-computing setup.
How It Started
See the original Zena and Li-Lab era, the first home-node stack, and how the present DPD systems began.
Current Systems
See the present-day DPD setup, including Atoll, the primary workstation; Harbor, the always-on home server and website staging host; and the separate Amadi production web infrastructure.
AI-Assisted Creation
Explore practical uses of AI for design, writing, organization, troubleshooting, prototyping, and technical experimentation—with people remaining responsible for the result.
Privacy and Digital Ownership
Explore the relationship between subscriptions, cloud dependence, personal data, software ownership, and long-term access to your digital life.
The Subscription of Survival →
The End of Big Corporate Data →
Featured Projects
Current DPD projects put Independent Computing into practice through useful software, local infrastructure, knowledge preservation, repair, and documented experimentation.
MT Server
MT Server is a free, local-first server platform being built for homes, small organizations, education, creative work, and small-business or community use. Its guided setup is meant to make useful self-hosted services practical without requiring every user to become a Linux administrator.
DPD Apps
DPD Apps are small Android tools built around real problems rather than subscription models. Current releases include Palletize It for planning pallet loads and ChaosLedger for documenting incidents, evidence, and their real costs.
MT Open Knowledge Library
The MT Open Knowledge Library preserves useful books, manuals, primary documents, and reference material in downloadable offline collections. Three Book Cases now provide 300 books, alongside the 370-PDF U.S. Army Field Manuals Practical Historical Collection.
Browse the Open Knowledge Library →
Current Systems
Atoll, Harbor, and the separate production web infrastructure are working examples of building useful systems from already-owned, repaired, and secondhand hardware. The point is not the exact machines; it is the practice of giving hardware clear jobs, documenting the system, and keeping control of the important parts.
Earlier and Supporting Work
Projects such as Linux Tech Helper, the original Home Node, and the Smart Four-Drive File Architecture remain part of the DPD record. They document earlier experiments, useful tools, and ideas that still inform current work even when they are no longer the main headline.
- Software Downloads and Linux Tech Helper
- The Original Home Node
- The Smart Four-Drive File Architecture
- Browse All DPD Projects
How We Evaluate Tools & Platforms
Independent Computing is not built around a single operating system, application, company, or list of approved products.
The better approach is to understand what a tool provides, what it requires, and what control you may give up by depending on it.
When evaluating software, hardware, platforms, and online services, we ask questions such as:
- Does it continue working locally when the internet is unavailable?
- Can users export their files and data in useful formats?
- Does it support open or widely compatible file formats?
- Is a continuing subscription required?
- Does it collect information that is unnecessary for its function?
- Can it run effectively on hardware the user already owns?
- Can its configuration and important data be backed up?
- Is there a documented recovery or migration path?
- Does it work with other tools, or does it create a locked ecosystem?
- Is the project actively maintained and reasonably documented?
- Does it solve a real need without adding unnecessary complexity?
No tool needs to pass every test.
A cloud service may provide valuable collaboration. A commercial application may offer compatibility that an open alternative cannot. A subscription may be reasonable when it funds a service someone genuinely uses.
The important thing is understanding the tradeoff before building an entire workflow around it.
The Reasoning Behind the Choices
These articles explore some of the reasoning used when evaluating technology:
- The Digital Value Audit: What Do You Actually Need? →
- The Subscription of Survival →
- The Hand-Me-Down Economy: Why Your Old Laptop Isn’t Trash →
- The Hardware Rescue: Scavenging for Your Sovereign Stack →
- The End of Big Corporate Data →
Finding Specific Tools
The Software Toolbox applies these questions to specific applications, platforms, utilities, and services.
It is the place to look for practical recommendations. This Hub explains the principles used to make those recommendations.
Explore the Software Toolbox →
The Philosophy Behind the Projects
Many projects on this site are connected by a simple idea:
Technology should remain understandable, adaptable, repairable, and creatively empowering.
Independent Computing is not about rejecting modern technology.
It is about making technology more human-centered, transparent, and sustainable over time.