Fingerprint Reader How To: All System76 Laptops

[crichell]

Development has completed for the Fingerprint Reader in all current System76 laptops. The driver was created by the fprint project with a laptop donation from System76. Thanks fprint!

fprint is in an early development stage and there are some important caveats to installing the software.

1. Some Administration interfaces will NOT work! Network, Services, Time and Date, and Users and Groups will not Unlock. This is due to PAM (Pluggable Authentication Method) limitations and will take time to re-work. It is relatively easy to switch back to standard username/password authentication when you need to use these applications.
2. This software currently requires compiling the bits.
3. We have only tested in GNOME. Feedback from users of KDE, xfce, and other environments is welcome.

I appreciate any feedback or ideas you have. With our early testing I don't think that FP Readers are in a production ready capacity within the Linux stack. For this reason it may be some time before we provide this functionality out of the box. Your feedback will go a long way to making this decision. (We definitely have to get around the admin interface locks imposed by PolicyKit.)

And Finally - The How To:

http://knowledge76.com/index.php/Fin...r_Installation

[greg_g]

It works for me on the Daru2, thanks!

[steveneddy]

This is really exiting!

Thanks for the good work, Carl.

[compholio]

So, by following the HOWTO it appears that I've registered my fingerprint for the root user rather than my own user...

[badbull]

thanks, works for me...but is there a way to disable the promt on gnome startup?
and it would be nice if you can use the fingerprint sensor for scolling

[greg_g]

badbull, you can scroll already by sliding your finger along the right side of the touchpad.

[crichell]

So, by following the HOWTO it appears that I've registered my fingerprint for the root user rather than my own user...

You're registering your finger for whomever you're logged in as.

but is there a way to disable the promt on gnome startup?

Not that I know of. The login screen will timeout if your finger isn't properly recognized or if you don't swipe at all. I think the best solution, once the software stack has improved, is to log in with your finger only - no username or password prompt. That will be really slick for tablets or netbooks that swivel.

it would be nice if you can use the fingerprint sensor for scolling

I think so too - particularly for fingerprint readers mounted under the arrow keys. I'll pass on the suggestion.

[shingalated]

Any way to tweak the sensitivity? I have tried registering my finger about a hundred times and it never quite matches up close enough.

[jeamer]

First off, thanks so much for getting this going! Everyone has been whiney babies (myself included) on the fingerprint reader functionality, and I really appreciate the effort going in.

Having said that. I am having issues. In the fprint program, I can get a good "swipe" about 75% of the time, but in actual usage (login etc) it still hasn't worked after about a week and a bit. Also, I am having major issues with any admin stuff.... thru the terminal it is okay, it prompts for the fingerprint, I swipe, it doesn't work, then I enter my password... but graphically any admin stuff will freeze and crash on attempt to open. I assume it's waiting for a fingerprint that I try and provide, but doesn't get read, and then after no "password" it closes. Any way I can fix it? Or alternatively can someone give me the original text for the config file so I can revert back to straight password usage until the functionality gets a bit better? Thanks!

PS A prompt on login (something like "Please swipe your finger") would be really cool too!

[greg_g]

Or alternatively can someone give me the original text for the config file so I can revert back to straight password usage until the functionality gets a bit better? Thanks!

If you followed the guide completely from this page (what Carl pointed us to):
http://knowledge76.com/index.php/Fin...r_Installation

Just:

sudo cp /etc/pam.d/common-auth_orig /etc/pam.d/common-auth