There is also signal-FOSS as an alternative to signal and Molly

Signal-FOSS

https://www.twinhelix.com/apps/signal-foss/

A fork of Signal for Android with proprietary Google binary blobs removed. Uses OpenStreetMap for maps and a websocket server connection, instead of Google Maps and Firebase Cloud Messaging.

add the repo to your app store to F-droid basic

https://fdroid.twinhelix.com/fdroid/repo/

The twinhelix repo is in the droidify and neostore repo list.

I install a full MX-Linux distro on an old 32Gb usb drive.

Particularly helpful when family or friends have IT problems.

I install the latest downloaded distro on a usb with dd:

sudo fdisk -l

sudo dd if=MX-23.5_x64.iso of=/dev/sdX status=progress

The /dev/sdX could be sdb, sdc, sdd, or microsd /dev/nvme0n1

boot into the live distro F12,

fully update the live disk.

set it up as you would your new linux device. network manager, web browser, text editor, email, VPN, etc and any tools you want.

whatever you change here goes into your new usb distro settings

once complete, install and run bleachbit as user and as root to clear all the caches and install data.

install another blank usb into the laptop

Open MX-Linux tools to create a snapshot

select Snapshot.

select a different snapshot directory. use the blank usb you just inserted,

usually: /dev/sdb

rename the snapshot to a name of choice.

once the creation of the snapshot is complete, safely remove the usb drive and shut down the live distro.

boot into your daily driver.

Insert the usb drive with the MX-Linux snapshot, and transfer it to a new folder/directory.

insert the 32Gb usb. format it with gparted, fat32 is fine

open the folder/directory with the snapshot.iso

open a terminal

then install the snapshot onto the usb with dd.

sudo fdisk -l

sudo dd if=snapshot.iso of=/dev/sdX status=progress

The /dev/sdX could be sdb, sdc, sdd, or microsd /dev/nvme0n1

always double check with:

sudo fdisk -l

I am sure it will creep back up once the MX 25 has been released with Debian 13 on 9th August.

https://mxlinux.org/blog/changes-coming-with-mx-25/

Optional distro downloads for Systemd or sysVinit.

use Mx-Linux on my old T450 laptop.

works great for my needs.

I have been using disktest to overwrite my SSD’s.

I overwrite the SSD’s before encryption. works just as well on HDD’s too.

A 2TB HDD takes about 3.5 hours to overwrite with the encrypted seed

A 250GB SSD takes about 17 minutes to overwrite with the encrypted seed

https://crates.io/crates/disktest

https://github.com/mbuesch/disktest

install with cargo

cargo uninstall disktest

much faster than your usual suspects like dd.

it runs as root: so add this $PATH to the root .bashrc export PATH=/root/.cargo/bin:$PATH

recent test run on 250Gb ssd with just write with no verify:

disktest --write -j0 /dev/nvme0n1

The generated --seed is: omNw4JreY1ZVAfwD4dgooF061R10Ra0vnmYv5SrU Use this seed for subsequent --verify.

Writing /dev/nvme0n1 (512 bytes sectors), starting at position 0 bytes… [15:09 / 00h:00m:10s] Wrote 7.62 GiB (8.18 GB) @ 779.3 MiB/s …

[15:26 / 00h:17m:16s] Done. Wrote 238.47 GiB (256.06 GB, 256059113472 bytes) @ 235.5 MiB/s. Successfully dropped file caches. Generated --seed omNw4JreY1ZVAfwD4dgooF061R10Ra0vnmYv5SrU

Success!

to check my SSD’s I use:

prometheus-smartctl-exporter

sudo smartctl -i -a /dev/nvme0n1