Linux Howdy - Windows Hello Camera Login

Bazzite
1

Can we get his added to the base image? I tried installing via a Fedora distrobox and the box does not have access to the hardware camera and it fails to setup the auth. Plus I also wonder is the box has the nessicary PAM access to support OS authentication. I can’t find an easy way to install it from a COPR via rpm-ostree.

6 Likes
2

+1
Would also like this as an alternative login option!

3

This would need to be done on the host in order to have access to the pam stack.

4

What do you mean by that?

5

You cannot do this inside of a distrobox.

6

Yes and that is exactly why it would be nice to have it in the aurora/bluefin/bazzite base image :slight_smile:

7

Just wanted to chime in and say that I would also be interested in this coming to Bazzite.

8

I would also love this option. Although I am using fingerprint login and am prompted for my password anyway when entering GNOME. So I am wondering if this camera based option would just create a similar annoyance.

9

You can install howdy via copr, I setup howdy already on my bazzite install

# bazzite ships a copr helper script
copr enable principis/howdy-beta
dnf install howdy howdy-gtk

howdy beta is required for config files to be in /etc, which is a writeable directory on bazzite

then you can do something like this:

e.g. update device_path in /etc/howdy/config.ini to /dev/video3

/dev/video3 is the IR camera on the Minisforum v3 tablet

1 Like
10

for future reference, here’s a link to the repo for the copr helper util: GitHub - ublue-os/COPR-command: A small script reenabling the "COPR" command on Fedora distros not including it

11

Thanks for the info!
On Aurora,
dnf install howdy howdy-gtk
does not work.
Instead I had to use
rpm-ostree install howdy howdy-gtk

Edit:
Also for future reference, here is how to actually enable camera login:

First: run howdy-gtk to add your face to your username.

Then enable howdy for the login:
sudo nano /etc/pam.d/sddm
add following lines to the top:

auth    [success=1 new_authtok_reqd=1 default=ignore]   pam_unix.so try_first_p>
auth    sufficient      pam_howdy.so

Now, during login I get asked for a password, but when I just hit the enter key, howdy jumps in and lets me in into my system :slight_smile:

2 Likes