Tech observations

The past couple of days I've been solving various things across devices, services, and operating systems. I spent a big chunk of yesterday evening finally fixing the HDR issue I had playing The Witcher 3 on Steam Deck via Heroic Launcher (that I got for free on GOG). The fix was very simple and it was one I was aware of, but didn't want to mess around too much in desktop mode outside of installing Flatpaks via Discover. Even though the solution was technically a Flatpak, it is installed via the terminal (I checked how easy it would be to remove just in case before doing anything). This immediately fixed it and then I spent a little while trying to get a good middle ground of settings for The Witcher 3.

After solving that I then discovered that my Google account settings were causing problems with logging into new devices. I had set up a Passkey, because these are supposed to be the future. Yet, in practice they introduce problems. Turns out, in Google's case it "upgrades" the security threshold. Meaning that if the device you are trying to login on doesn't properly utilise a hardware passkey, it throws a wobbly and wants you to wait 48 hours before you can log into that device. I initially came across this issue on Linux, and partly put it down to that. But, after updating my password and logging back into a Google TV streamer I was met with the exact same issue.

It was after trying again today and realising the "error" that I realised it was my Google security settings that were the "problem". This meant un-enrolling from the extra security (which is absurd) and getting rid of the non-phone based passkey. After doing so I immediately re-added 2-factor using my password manager and backed up the new back up codes. Now I'm able to log in easily again and still have good security in place.

This whole scenario though reinforced the decision I made last year to not only move away from Google (as in not be reliant on it) and also diversify my online services so that there isn't a single point of failure. It was part of the reason why I didn't simply just move everything over to Proton. Sure, it's a good alternative to Google, but not having everything in one place is good from both a security perspective and an enshittification aspect.

Using Google services I was always worried one element would either degrade or be killed off. Now, if one service does go that way, well I just move that one part to somewhere else, instead of moving everything wholesale.

Finally, the other thing I discovered today is that Bazzite comes with LDAC support. Unlike Windows where you have to buy a third party plugin (that plugin does what it says it does, but feels like an unnecessary workaround). I'm currently marking student work and I don't like doing so on my personal Windows laptop because I've almost been burnt before. This is where my old Dell running Bazzite is great. Partly because I don't have anything important on it, partly because Linux, but also because this version is immutable making it (supposedly) easier to fix if there is an issue.

I had still been contemplating switching to Cachy OS but for general use, Bazzite does work very well (even though it's a "gaming" distro). Flatpaks do the job for me for the most part. Plus, recently more alternative Tidal Linux launchers have popped up and support the higher quality streams etc, hence my subsequent discovery of LDAC support.

I've even written this very post via the Linux version of Obsidian, which is also posting directly to this very blog.

The year of Linux is starting to feel quite real.