Howdy not triggering camera on Linux Mint 22 (Ubuntu 24.04) - Dell Latitude 5430

[rialvarezbaldrich-collab]

Hello everyone,

I'm having trouble getting Howdy to work on Linux Mint 22 (Kernel 6.18) with a Dell Latitude 5430.

What I've done so far:

Hardware confirmed: v4l2-ctl shows the IR camera on /dev/video2.

Howdy test works: Running sudo howdy test successfully turns on the IR emitters and recognizes my face.

Configuration: device_path is set to /dev/video2 and dark_threshold to 100.

PAM Config: I've added auth sufficient pam_python3.so /lib/security/howdy/pam.py to /etc/pam.d/sudo.

The issue: When I run sudo -i, it immediately asks for a password. No IR lights, no "Identifying face" message, even with detection_notice = true.

Error found: I noticed that libpam-python3 is missing or incompatible with Python 3.12 in this Mint version. I've tried creating symbolic links like ln -s /lib/security/howdy/pam.py /lib/security/pam_python3.so, but the system still ignores it.

Does anyone have a workaround for the pam_python issue on Ubuntu 24.04 / Mint 22? Is there a new PAM module I should be using?

Thanks!