I am pleased with myself for having gotten a distro flashed onto a usb stick from a mac (nervous I would wipe out my mac), then installed it on an old thinkpad. It worked nicely once I figured out the extra stuff not explicit in the directions. I am working on trying tuta and mullvad on it or firefox that I can harden. I did get LibreOffice downloaded and started a database. My hands need a rest the keyboard and size of the laptop is far too big for me. I will get back to the hardening tomorrow.