I have spent some time over the past couple years as a ham playing with data modes, in part for personal preparedness and also as a member of local ARES groups. In the past week I have been poking at ArcOS: https://arcos-linux.com/rtfm.html
It is a lightweight Linux distro that runs off a USB drive and provides resources for a PC with a Digirig Mobile to operate an HF/VHF/UHF radio for APRS, Winlink, FT8, JS8call, etc. It can save basic parameters in free space on the USB drive, but it does not write to a local hard disk, so it can be used on any PC without messing with the existing OS install. There is the ability to tinker, but if you mess it up good you can just reboot and be back in operation. Every so often a new version is released that keeps it current and deals with any bugs.
Definitely a good option to consider for those that could use this tool. I have not used it for HF yet, but I like its potential.