Look into file recovery software as a possible solution.

A few relevant links:

Package: testdisk
(Partition scanner and disk recovery tool, and PhotoRec file recovery tool)
https://packages.debian.org/stable/testdisk

PhotoRec
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

R-Linux
https://www.r-studio.com/free-linux-recovery/

Believe me, I am. And even if I do decide to keep using Linux, it most likely won't be running on "bare metal", but in a VM on a Qubes-like system.

I have chosen "none of the above" for the reasons covered in this article:

Firefox and Chromium
https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.html

Actually, I will most likely still keep Firefox around, it just won't be my primary web browser anymore.

I did some quick research on this, and apparently this problem could be caused by a faulty cable. Or maybe even just a loose cable. The fact that warmth seems to help is a clue that the cable may simply be loose.

Since gaming is important to you, I see nothing wrong with doing that.

“The danger is not only that AI systems might behave unpredictably, but that fear of that possibility will legitimize permanent emergency governance—centralized control over computation, research, and information flows—on the grounds that there is no alternative.”

How a Techno-Optimist Became a Grave Skeptic
https://brownstone.org/articles/how-a-techno-optimist-became-a-grave-skeptic/

@Fielding

Try this and post the output in a reply:

aptitude search vivaldi

I prefer to install the gdebi-core package and then use gdebi like this:

cd ~/Downloads
sudo gdebi <package-name>.deb

This approach has rarely (if ever) given me any problems.

The night before last I upgraded a Daedalus-based Refracta to Excalibur. I experienced no major problems, but there were some minor ones.

The most noticeable problem was the CPU Graph plugin for Xfce kept crashing and had to be removed. I'm not sure why, and haven't had time to investigate this issue yet.

I may have also found a serious problem in one of Debian's packages -- a security-related program never starts because no configuration file was installed when the package was installed. I will refrain from naming the software until I've investigated further. Perhaps this was just a fluke caused by the system being in a transitional state when I attempted to reinstall the package.

Because not updating is a bad practice, security-wise. And that's a major reason why I would never use a Puppy Linux derivative (or similar) as my "daily driver". By the way, I did try that once, years ago, on an old computer, but quickly gave up because the system was too unstable.

There is also isoimagewriter for creating bootable USB flash drives from hybrid ISO files.

Why are you using a version of Icecat that is so old? That version of Icecat is over two years old.