Hi @belerry,
This is what I did to have the closest Signal experience to my old Android device:
- Follow these directions to install and configure Waydroid. Begin on step 2 as you are installing Waydroid for the first time.
- Launch Waydroid by tapping the icon and allow the program to run through its boot animation. If you do not see the animation within ~15 seconds, try locking the phone and unlocking it. This has consistently helped me ensure the program was launching correctly.
- Once Waydroid has fully loaded (it should look like a normal Android environment), launch a browser in this environment and download the Signal package.
- Launch the Signal Android package (APK) (you must first enable permissions to install “untrusted apps” as this was not installed directly through Google Play) by tapping on the file within a file browser (i.e. Files app) and selecting “Install”
- Download/copy a Signal backup file within Waydroid, if applicable
- Launch Signal and follow its procedure to restore your backup
I hope this helps! Let me know if these steps are confusing and I’m happy to revise this post.