Modern multi-modal biometric login for Linux - face and fingerprint, with GUI management.
Linux lacks a unified, modern equivalent of Windows Hello. Biopass, by @phucvinh57 and @thaitran24, fills that gap.
| Feature | Biopass | Howdy |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication methods | Face + Fingerprint | Face only |
| User Interface | Modern GUI for management | Command-line interface only |
| Configuration | GUI | Manual |
| Face Anti-spoofing | IR camera + Embedded AI model | IR camera only |
I have seen some user feedback that they do not want to install an AI slop on their machine. I have no idea how they determine a project is a slop.
I started this project in 2024, before coding agents existed. I learned PAM, Tauri, face recognition and antispoofing, study CMake and Linux packaging by hand to build it. This is the most interesting project that I have built, at least until now.
However, I reach my limit so fast:
- Hardware: Cameras vary widely (some work with
v4l2but notlibcamera, and vice versa), and I do not own most of them. Bug reports are often hard to reproduce, so fixes used to mean guessing, shipping a release candidate, and asking users to retest. Claude and Codex know a lot about these devices that I do not. - Time: Life is difficult. I am just a regular person who is trying to survive. I have other things to do.
That is why I adopt AI to help maintain this project. If you do not want to use it just because Claude or Codex is in the contributor list, I do not care. To keep quality up, I follow Addy Osmani's article.
- Debian and RPM packages: https://github.com/phucvinh57/biopass/releases
- AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/biopass-bin
Setup guides:
- PAM (system sign-in,
pam-auth-updateon Debian/Ubuntu): docs/PAM.md - Polkit (interactive authentication): docs/Polkit.md
- IR camera: docs/IR camera.md
- Keyring/KWallet unlock after face login (TPM-sealed password): docs/Keyring.md
- Authentication: register multiple biometrics, run methods in parallel or sequentially.
- Face:
- Recognition
- Anti-spoofing
- With AI model
- With IR camera
- Fingerprint
- Face:
- Local AI model management: download, update, and delete models.
- GNOME Keyring/KWallet unlock
Bugs and feature requests: open an issue. To contribute, read CONTRIBUTING.md.
Models used in this project: