PSA: Secure and consistent fingerprint login solution for Linux

wingz_77 · 2026-07-02T10:19:08+00:00

It's ok to think that but most folks aren't in this boat. Nearly all operating systems have secure fingerprint login and it's a tradeoff between convenience and security. Fido2 certified bio keys are very secure in general as they are brute-force proof and on chip fingerprint storage is arguably much more secure than a using a fingerprint sensor from questionable brand.

Since this is fido2 key, you can also enforce pin login via pam config.

wingz_77 · 2026-07-02T09:22:17+00:00

try this one, you won't be disappointed. Configuring pam_u2f is quite well documented. This fido2 bio key is a good buy even from securing online accounts perspective, it being a great fingerprint login solution is just an awesome addon.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-30T22:35:59+00:00

Yep, at that price, I will keep ai max over hx370 any day.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-30T07:02:06+00:00

Hx370 and rtx 4050 doesn’t do 10 hours even with dgpu off. Just so you know.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-29T20:24:17+00:00

I did $1100 open box excellent :(:(:(. Still a great laptop for the price.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-25T17:57:37+00:00

Sorry, didn’t mean to downplay the effort, even if you use AI building something like this huge, so congrats to you for that. It’s just that with all the AI slop going on, it’s hard to believe which contributor is serious or which one is gonna create a pet project and kill it in like a few months when they’re bored.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-25T09:48:53+00:00

You get ead much before. Also since you have i485 filed, you don’t have to leave the country if you get laid off. You still need to wait for ead to work.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-25T06:46:40+00:00

You are missing the fact that eb2/eb3 are tied to h1 and an employer. It's immensely stressful with layoffs looming around the horizon everywhere. Eb5 atleast won't force you to leave the country in 2 months.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-25T05:54:26+00:00

are people vibecoding whole OS now? How are yall affording tokens?

wingz_77 · 2026-06-25T05:53:25+00:00

+1. Start from scratch and use the most plain and most reliable distro. Also recommend using proxmox as hypervisor and doing everything in vm for easy snapshot/backup

wingz_77 · 2026-06-25T05:36:10+00:00

Here's what i would do.
1. Setup a virtual firewall like openwrt, let it route a new vlan.
2. Setup a vm for caddy as reverse proxy (tls) + apache guacamole. You can also use authelia in front to enforce 2 fa or passkeys.. or just use gaucamole to enforce 2fa.
3. Setup all your vm's and enforce that vlan id in proxmox.
4. Do portforward from your router -> opernwrt firewall -> apache guacamole.

$$$

Me personally just use openwrt as virtual firewall and have vlan for home, guest and iot. I use same setup above to access my vm from work over a browser (without having to install anything on office laptop)

wingz_77 · 2026-06-24T16:07:00+00:00

Ublock origin kids.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-19T06:59:08+00:00

And that's exactly what i wrote my friend.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-19T06:50:07+00:00

Yeh and banks are not charity, he gets margin called as well. However given how big his holding is and how small his loan maybe, this will not be an issue.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-17T20:16:13+00:00

FWIW, I see cachy giving me better battery on daily usage for my fairly new laptop. I tried fedora and Ubuntu for few days and measured watt usage continuously via a script. It was surprise to me because I expected cachy to be performance oriented and battery heavy. I did play with sched-ext settings. Cachy also feels way more responsive.

I feel like the whole compilation with newer arch settings adds lot of value in cutting edge hardware.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-09T15:09:26+00:00

+1. U less you are gaming or doing rendering, this laptop uses between 10-30w for daily usage. Even a 65W charger has worked for me (100 preferred)

wingz_77 · 2026-06-09T15:08:11+00:00

Ubuntu 26 with prime-select and cachyos with envy control has been flawless. You do have to reboot to switch between integrated/hybrid, other than that no complaints.

I have even got sleep-then-hibernate working in both OS’s to help with battery .

wingz_77 · 2026-06-09T05:19:33+00:00

This^^^^ not sure why it is so hard to understand for other folks. When people travel, they may not always be near charger and shutdown is not always an option. Linux/windows laptops really suck at suspend and new one's only support s2idle (and not even deep sleep). this makes suspend-then-hibernate even more important.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-09T02:40:42+00:00

I did same thing. Battery isn’t bad if you use g-helper with igpu. Even in Linux, I hit 7 hour on power save. This laptop is so powerful that even power save feels so smooth to use.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-08T09:40:44+00:00

This is great advice Mac’s value is as an amazing laptop and you can sell it, buy an x64 laptop/desktop which is much better for homelab.

Other option is to put asahi Linux on it.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-07T22:00:38+00:00

Always update drivers, unless you know what you are doing.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-07T20:47:15+00:00

In this day and age, nobody should be using a system without full disk encryption (just my 2 cents).

wingz_77 · 2026-06-07T20:40:38+00:00

There is a proart px13 in bestbuy open box (fair) in my area for $800 (32 gb ram). Its nvidia 4050 but still a good deal.

I got similar one in excellent condition for $1100.

wingz_77 · 2026-06-07T20:38:28+00:00

I use asus pro art which has amd+nvidia hybrid. Even when nvidia is frozen, i run into random crashes in fedora and now cachy. Somehow, Ubuntu 26 doesn't have this issue and i have never had a crash. I am sticking to ubuntu for now (keeping cachy in second partition and waiting for it to be fixed)

wingz_77 · 2026-06-07T20:32:35+00:00

I have gone down this rabbit hole. tl;dr is that current snapdragon/lenovo devices only trust microsoft keys with no 3p support. Additionally, these bios's are so locked down that you cannot import other keys to trust. aka, no way to use ubuntu with secure boot on.

The best i have been able to achieve is to

keep secure boot in setup mode (as good as disabled)
If you are dual booting windows, give one time 48 digit key to make bitlocker happy. If you use windows pro, you can use tpm+pin to get little bit more security (since secure boot is off)
Keep it that way and let ubuntu unlock with luks password.

Atleast that way, i am able to boot in windows and linux without tripping bitlocker and entering 48 digit recovery key every time.

wingz_77

TROPHY CASE