🛡️ Howdy Patcher

Windows Hello™ Style Face Unlock for Debian 13, Ubuntu 24.04+ & Modern Linux

TL;DR: Howdy face recognition broken on modern Linux? Run this script to fix it instantly.

⚡ One-Line Fix

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blamairia/howdy-patcher/main/howdy-patcher.sh -o howdy-patcher.sh && chmod +x howdy-patcher.sh && sudo ./howdy-patcher.sh

🔥 Are You Getting These Errors?

❌ ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'ConfigParser'

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/lib/security/howdy/pam.py", line 10, in <module>
    import ConfigParser
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'ConfigParser'

❌ externally-managed-environment during installation

error: externally-managed-environment
× This environment is externally managed

❌ GStreamer camera errors

[ WARN:0@2.941] global cap_gstreamer.cpp:2839 handleMessage OpenCV | GStreamer warning: Embedded video playback halted
[ WARN:0@2.941] global cap_gstreamer.cpp:1698 open OpenCV | GStreamer warning: unable to start pipeline

❌ Sudo works without password after installing Howdy

Your PAM is failing silently and falling back to permit-all!

❌ Face recognition not working on Debian 13 / Ubuntu 24.04

The old Howdy package is incompatible with Python 3.10+

👆 If you're experiencing ANY of these — this patcher fixes them all!

🤔 What is Howdy?

Howdy provides Windows Hello™ style facial authentication for Linux. It uses your IR camera to recognize your face and log you in — no password needed!

The Problem: The packaged version (v2.6.1) doesn't work on modern systems like Debian 13 "Trixie" or Ubuntu 24.04+ because:

• It uses Python 2 syntax (ConfigParser) but modern systems only have Python 3 (configparser)
• The PAM module crashes silently, making sudo work without ANY authentication
• OpenCV defaults to GStreamer which doesn't work with many IR cameras

The Solution: This patcher automatically fixes all these issues in seconds.

🔧 What Gets Fixed

🚀 Installation

Quick Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blamairia/howdy-patcher/main/howdy-patcher.sh -o howdy-patcher.sh
chmod +x howdy-patcher.sh
sudo ./howdy-patcher.sh

From Source

git clone https://github.com/blamairia/howdy-patcher.git
cd howdy-patcher
sudo ./howdy-patcher.sh

📋 Requirements

• ✅ Howdy v2.6.1 installed (from .deb package, PPA, or gdebi)
• ✅ Linux with Python 3.10+ (Debian 13, Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 39+, etc.)
• ✅ Root/sudo access
• ✅ IR Camera (usually /dev/video2)

💻 Supported Distributions

🔄 After Patching

1. Find your IR camera:

   v4l2-ctl --list-devices

   Look for "IR" in the name (usually /dev/video2)

2. Configure Howdy:

   sudo howdy config

   Set device_path = /dev/video2 (your IR camera path)

3. Add your face:

   sudo howdy add

4. Test it:

   sudo howdy test   # Visual test with camera feed
   sudo -i           # Real authentication test

🔙 Rollback

The patcher creates a timestamped backup. To restore:

# Find your backup
ls /lib/security/howdy-backup-*

# Restore it
sudo ./restore-howdy.sh /lib/security/howdy-backup-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS

📝 Manual Fixes

If you prefer to apply fixes manually:

Fix 1: Python 3 Compatibility (pam.py)

sudo sed -i 's/^import ConfigParser$/import configparser as ConfigParser/' /lib/security/howdy/pam.py

Fix 2: V4L2 Camera Backend (video_capture.py)

Edit /lib/security/howdy/recorders/video_capture.py:

# Change this:
self.internal = cv2.VideoCapture(
    self.config.get("video", "device_path")
)

# To this:
self.internal = cv2.VideoCapture(
    self.config.get("video", "device_path"), cv2.CAP_V4L2
)

Fix 3: Install dlib (PEP 668 bypass)

sudo pip3 install dlib --break-system-packages

🔗 Related Howdy Issues

This patcher was created to solve these open issues:

• #912 - Howdy can't import module ConfigParser
• #954 - externally-managed-environment error
• #1027 - Python 2 commands in pam script
• #935 - Ubuntu 24.04 LTS issues
• #890 - Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• #1046 - Howdy PAM module fails on Ubuntu 25.04

🤝 Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue or PR.

Found this helpful? ⭐ Star the repo!

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file.

🙏 Credits

• Howdy by boltgolt — The amazing Windows Hello™ style facial authentication for Linux
• This patcher was created after encountering these issues on Debian 13 "Trixie"

🔍 SEO Keywords

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Note: The dev branch of Howdy has been completely rewritten and includes these fixes natively. This patcher is specifically for users stuck on the packaged v2.6.1 version.