I work on Linux and use Linux at home. I’ll try to go through the problems you mentioned:

1. Just run the update command again in the GUI or terminal. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have to dig into apt with verbose logs but I haven’t had apt break on me for over a decade unless I deleted something I shouldn’t have.
2. Is Firefox installed as a snap/flatpak? That only happens with me occasionally when I installed flatpaks, they’re just slower. Canonical can be a real arse about this stuff, they might switch packages to snaps without telling you and you might only come to know about it once you dig deeper.
3. All of these issues seem to related to your storage medium. Is the SSD OK? Open up the process monitor, sort by ascending order of disk writes/reads and open your applications one by one to see which one of them is the culprit.
4. Rebooting suddenly is not normal. Unfortunately, you’ll have to go through logs for this one. Simple ones are dmesg and journalctl, we can dig deeper into them if you want to.

If I had my hands on your laptop I’d be running a vulnerability scan by now but I don’t think the problem is serious enough to warrant it.

No, I meant the logic where the browser would prompt the user to review and verify the cert for a particular website without consulting a CA. I run some self-signed certs already but I’d love to implement this in my homelab.

This is actually a great idea. Is there an opensource implementation of it?

Oh, this is certainly complex logic (for the search engine I mean).

Never heard of tofu before (the software). What is it?

I had heard about DANE and how that would help in scaling back the need for big CAs but I could never grasp how one would do that. Do you know about it? I’m looking for someone to explain it to me.

Saved.

Thank you, I’ll get to it shortly. Dang it’s times like this that make me wish I was running Qubes but alas…

Also, you really shouldn’t give out your email like that. Head to SimpleLogin or Addy and get yourself an email alias too

Thank you. I have saved the post, but it seems the publishing website doesn’t like TOR exit nodes? I can’t seem to reach the page through TOR. I’ll try again later

Works. I mentioned those two since they seem to have the best privacy policy

Get a VPN using cash/XMR (Mullvad/IVPN), and then either use them directly or over TOR to create the account.

I need to watch this Defcon talk

Personally, Framework has become a bit too expensive for me. If you’re in the US I’d look at the older Dell precision and HP ZBook workstations from 2020 or earlier, they have amazing specs and go for $400 or so. Fairly repairable because enterprises demanded that they be and gobs of power for anything you want.

Older MacBooks still have that darned WiFi card which you need special proprietary drivers for. And basically nothing in that chassis is standard; everything is Apple-specific if you want to repair it. I don’t recommend MacBooks

I wish the communications of politicians get hacked and their plans leaked. They don’t care unless it happens to them.

If you’re going to travel to Germany then you might face similar treatment. Take care

Yes, by tight security I meant confiscation of your devices. This has been a regular thing in many middles eastern countries, some European countries and now the US, so it’s no longer a joke to the average Joe.

I wish I could survive without a SIM but a realistic look at my life makes it obvious that I cannot. Unfortunate

As you noted in another comment, your IMEI number is out and it has already been mapped to your current location. Which means if you travel with this device and security is tight enough, in theory they will be able to find out where you live. They will then probe for associated metadata from there.

Other than that, there’s not much risk as far as I can tell. Clear your list of WiFi networks before you travel and hope Google’s firmware for their modem isn’t spyware (it likely is though, Qualcomm made it).

If you want no cellular tracking: remove SIM, disable eSIM, switch on airplane mode and disable WiFi-calling if not disabled already.

Yes unfortunately your device has already been “fingerprinted”, but with MAC randomization and GrapheneOS’ work on preventing apps from checking software and hardware identifiers, I think you’ll be fine unless you’re going against the NSA. You shouldn’t be using a phone if you’re up against multiple 3-letter agencies

Seedboxes go from €2 to €100+ a month depending on how much you will torrent and how much space you need on the box alongside other factors. My personal choices are Gigarapid and Ultra but there are others

Rage-read until the third paragraph lol