HOWTO: Fingerprint reading in Ubuntu with fprint

[Kixtosh]

And here, for good measure, is the verification process, as well as the location in the Applications Menu:

[Mikafar]

Thank you, I came here because I had the same segfault with my X360, and your
hint was very helpful. It actually takes some training until scanning works, especially when your suffer from dry hands (like me); even when my fingers were scanned for an official ID card, it took a while, and I had to moisture them to make it work.

The Segfault, however occurs delayed if you are within identify tab; hence I could imagine that it is an error in the demo software, when the data is processed (some division by zero for all-white images or so). Is there a bug report on this so far?

I have to find further instructions to test fprint from other applications before using it for PAM. (And while typing I would be glad if I could auto deactivate the touchpad)...

CHeers!
MF

So I think I found out why the segmentation faults were happening. My friend actually has the exact same computer (and print reader) as well as the same version of ubuntu, but he didn't experience any seg faults. Anyways the conclustion we came to was this:

When scanning a print, you absolutely have to swipe your finger across the reader. Place the bottom of your "print" at the top of the reader, and drag it across (top to bottom) until the top of your "print" passes over the reader. Think of it like a scanner that scans from one end of a page to the other.

The way I was getting the seg faults was just putting my finger on the reader and removing it. I have no idea why it seg faulted, but apparently using the print reader correctly fixed it . So all in all, everything is working fine for me now.

[EDIT]I tried to trace the segfault using "strace". It was very hard then, to cause a segmentation fault - maybe a timing problem? After several trials, I triggered one, resulting in these lines of output:

ioctl(4, USBDEVFS_REAPURBNDELAY, 0x7fff59ae7058) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
select(5, NULL, [4], NULL, {0, 1000}) = 1 (out [4], left {0, 269})
ioctl(4, USBDEVFS_REAPURBNDELAY, 0x7fff59ae7058) = 0
write(2, "aes1610:warning [capture] ", 26aes1610:warning [capture] ) = 26
write(2, "swiping finger too slow?", 24swiping finger too slow?) = 24
write(2, "\n", 1
) = 1
mremap(0x7ff28ca9d000, 540672, 4096, MREMAP_MAYMOVE) = 0x7ff28ca9d000
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---
+++ killed by SIGSEGV +++

[/EDIT]

P.S.: My versions used
fprint-demo 20080202-2ubuntu1
libfprint0 0.0.6-2ubuntu2
kernel 2.6.31-22-generic #63-Ubuntu SMP Thu Aug 19 00:23:50 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Naaktgeboren]

Packages with fprintd, adding seamless fingerprint authentication integration into Ubuntu, can be found in this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~fingerprint/+archive/fprint

[defaria]

'Cept, last time I checked it doesn't work with my hardware so it's basically useless.

[joel.markshalayenka]

lsusb shows my fingerprint reader to be a Digital Persona Inc. device.

After following install routine outlined above, fprint_demo displays: Status: No Device Found.

Reader is in the palm rest of an HP ProBook 4520s (Intel i3).

Very sad I really hoped this would work...
...and it looks like fprint is not developing drivers since 2008. I really wish Canonical would take this issue up. Corporate laptops often use fingerprint readers and it would be a huge feather in Ubuntu's cap to have good fingerprint support!

[aeronutt]

lsusb shows my fingerprint reader to be a Digital Persona Inc. device.

After following install routine outlined above, fprint_demo displays: Status: No Device Found.

Reader is in the palm rest of an HP ProBook 4520s (Intel i3).

Very sad I really hoped this would work...
...and it looks like fprint is not developing drivers since 2008. I really wish Canonical would take this issue up. Corporate laptops often use fingerprint readers and it would be a huge feather in Ubuntu's cap to have good fingerprint support!

Agreed. Same problem, digitalpersona on my laptop. No workie.

[Rikki123s]

I am getting a rather unusual error on my computer for fprint. I have just install 11.04 and when I try to enroll using fprint_demo, the awaiting finger swipe window appears and the bar moves from left to right (as it should do), but when I attempt to enroll on my reader, it continues to display same attempt (1 of 3), does not acknowledge that I have swiped and continues to wait for me to swipe.

After doing this, I decided to use the command pam_fprint_enroll, I get this error:

rik@rik-VGN-TX3XP-B:~$ pam_fprint_enroll
This program will enroll your finger, unconditionally overwriting any selected print that was enrolled previously. If you want to continue, press enter, otherwise hit Ctrl+C

Found device claimed by UPEK TouchStrip driver
Opened device. It's now time to enroll your finger.

You will need to successfully scan your Right Index Finger 3 times to complete the process.

Scan your finger now.
Enroll failed with error -22

does anybody else get this Error -22? how do I fix it, I'm guessing this is what is breaking the application and stopping me from enrolling.

I may add that upon first installing fprint, the first attempt at enrolling worked, but I accidentally enrolled my right index finger as my left thumb, so I deleted it and it has not worked since

[pitbullthe1st]

I am getting a rather unusual error on my computer for fprint. I have just install 11.04 and when I try to enroll using fprint_demo, the awaiting finger swipe window appears and the bar moves from left to right (as it should do), but when I attempt to enroll on my reader, it continues to display same attempt (1 of 3), does not acknowledge that I have swiped and continues to wait for me to swipe.

After doing this, I decided to use the command pam_fprint_enroll, I get this error:

rik@rik-VGN-TX3XP-B:~$ pam_fprint_enroll
This program will enroll your finger, unconditionally overwriting any selected print that was enrolled previously. If you want to continue, press enter, otherwise hit Ctrl+C

Found device claimed by UPEK TouchStrip driver
Opened device. It's now time to enroll your finger.

You will need to successfully scan your Right Index Finger 3 times to complete the process.

Scan your finger now.
Enroll failed with error -22

does anybody else get this Error -22? how do I fix it, I'm guessing this is what is breaking the application and stopping me from enrolling.

I may add that upon first installing fprint, the first attempt at enrolling worked, but I accidentally enrolled my right index finger as my left thumb, so I deleted it and it has not worked since

Not sure but it could be priverlage try using sudo as Pam is protected by root. Just an I dear not to sure if it will work but that's what I would try first. Hope it helps

[o771]

@Kixtosh: You've considerably more patience than I. Although fprint installs and integrates nicely with 11.10 on my Samsung X360 with an aes1610, I found the recognition rate to be so poor as to make it unusable; so I've disabled fprint.

My previous experience of fingerprint recognition is under XP on a Thinkpad where recognition worked flawlessly every time, so my expectations of fprint were high.

I was surprised that fprint enrollment only required a single swipe. Is there some way to enroll using multiple samples so it has better data against which to perform recognition? Or can someone suggest some other reason why the recognition rate is so poor?

I'd be interested to know if anyone is using fprint for real? Especially if it's on an X360. I'd love to get this working but, as things stand, it doesn't seem to me to be ready for production use.

[fat yak]

Followed link above https://launchpad.net/~fingerprint/+archive/fprint and it worked perfectly. Although it said in 11.10 you would have to use terminal, mine scanned in GUI.