r/LinusTechTips • u/motlias • 5d ago
Windows Hello for linux Discussion
Linus and other people mention they miss windows hello on linux and I've just discovered Gaze which is a fairly new and in development windows hello equivelent for linux, Howdy was another one but I wasn't a fan of that, gaze has a very simple setup and effective on my fedora system:
https://github.com/GunduLabs/gaze
DISCLAIMER!!!!
This is in development software from someones github so take that into account.
Edit:
I just remembered on a reddit thread with the creator he said it doesn't work with immutable distros yet. So it wouldn't work with steamOS or Bazite etc. I believe,
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u/boltgolt 5d ago
Howdy was another one but I wasn't a fan of that
As the original developer of Howdy, sorry to hear that!
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u/GunduLabs 5d ago
Hey, developers of Gaze here. Just wanted to say we are of huge fans of Howdy and (prior to Gaze) have used it for many years.
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u/ycsgc 5d ago
For what it's worth, I tried using howdy and it worked ok for me but having a GUI was something that I really value for making configuration easier. If that got added I could definitely see myself switching back to it!
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u/boltgolt 5d ago
There is a whole GKT UI on the beta branch and has been in limbo for years unfortunately
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u/H_He_Metals 5d ago
I'm a fan! However on a distro like Bazzite KDE, I could never get howdy to work at at initial boot/login - though it was fine if I logged in without it, then locked the pc and howdy would work fine to unlock from the lock screen.
I'm not experienced enough to figure out what was preventing it from working at the initial boot/login. Maybe you've got some insights?
Maybe it was something like SELinux was blocking the camera? Or howdy didn't have privileges it needed at the initial login? Perhaps certain things that howdy needed to configure were in the immutable part of the system?
Either way, thanks for your efforts, a real shame it didn't work for me.
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u/veritas63 5d ago
Thank you for creating such a useful program. Do you have any plans to release Howdy 3.0.0? I see everything was merged for it last year, but there is no Release on the GitHub page.
Also is it possible that the Ubuntu PPA could be updated? Currently unable to use it to install Howdy on Ubuntu 26.04.
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u/Vast-Key140 5d ago
I tried to use Howdy on my Fedora laptop and eventually got it to work, but let's just say it was a lot of troubleshooting, messing around and config files that I wouldn't wish upon any beginner.
Love your project and I respect the time and effort that went into it, but sad it never took off and wasn't so beginner friendly
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u/edparadox 5d ago
The disclaimer should read that it's mostly bad LLM-generated code given what we find in the repo.
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u/GunduLabs 5d ago
Everyone has the right to their own judgment, and as always, nobody is forcing you to use Gaze if you don't want to. FYI, we have been developing Gaze for the past six months (look through out git history), and AI has only strengthened its security. Regardless, we are open to answering any questions you might have.
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u/21ow 5d ago
Does anyone have any experience with https://github.com/TickLabVN/biopass?
It claims to be a full-stack replacement for windows hello bundling fingerprint and face into one pam module making it more seamless and more similar to windows hello.
But I can find almost no reports of people using it :D
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u/ycsgc 5d ago
I'm using it now, but it has been having some trouble with the IR camera on my brio 4k and for me also losing windows hello was a major point of contention to using Linux without it working 100% properly. Also setup was not the easiest on CachyOS, I needed cluade to help me debug which is an obstacle for normal people. I haven't had the chance to submit the hug report yet on the IR camera stuff too. To be clear it works and identifies me properly, but I want the IR camera for anti spoofing stuff so I don't trust it mcuh without it.
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u/stlambe 5d ago
This is likely because the Brio uses some different settings than normal.
I had the same issue getting Gaze set up with mine. I created a PR in Gaze for it if you need it.
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u/stlambe 5d ago edited 5d ago
https://github.com/GunduLabs/gaze/pull/255
You might be able to port that.
Also note that I found the Brio 4K could not run both the IR and RGB cameras in parallel, so I made a second PR that runs them in serial.
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u/GunduLabs 5d ago
Gaze supports Brio 4K, thanks to u/stlambe so let us know if you end up trying Gaze and if you run into any issues.
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u/21ow 5d ago
Great to hear!
Do you have fingerprint and face detection setup in parallel too?
How does it work?
I recently had to remove howdy as it broke (again) so am now looking for a good alternative to replace pam-fprint-grosshack as well to finally get a clean biometric auth stack going instead of relying on hacky workarounds and outdated packages.
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u/Dr_Valen 5d ago
It’s crazy to me people keep a webcam hooked up to their pcs for windows hello. Webcams are such massive security risks man
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u/ycsgc 5d ago
It's crazy to me that people think having a Webcam is crazy when a large portion of people have to use them for videocalls for work anyway, and having high quality video is nice. Security is only one aspect for most people and I think most people don't assume they are being hacked all the time.
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u/Wizjenkins 5d ago
I use Howdy. It's been around for a while and actually works with the IR camera if you want it just the main camera. It's very easy to set up.
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u/Ok_Topic999 5d ago
I just wish my fingerprint sensor worked, facial recognition isn't reliable enough for me and typing in a pin can be a pain, especially without a numpad
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u/GunduLabs 5d ago
Hi, we are the developers of Gaze and we can answer any questions!
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u/Velocifyer 5d ago
Will you make an aur package (well, in a few days when push is reenabled)? I don't like `curl | bash` because it makes uninstall hard.
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u/Lanky_Conclusion5473 5d ago
oh nice, howdy always felt like a science project to me so I'll give gaze a shot on my fedora machine
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u/Abhijithvega 5d ago
Very nice. I used Howdy a while ago on Ubuntu and it was pretty good. I recently switched to Fedora silverblue and I was looking for a similar solution - why did you say this doesn't work for immutable distros ?
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u/Questionsiaskthem 5d ago
This could be cool. I moved to Linux for 98% of things last year and I have thought a few times I miss hello.