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21

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad with a fingerprint reader:

Thinkpad fingerprint

How to make Ubuntu recognise it and use it for login?

I already tried:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fingerprint/fingerprint-gui
sudo apt-get update

... but this GUI did not recognizes my device. Does anyone knows any other option?

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Do you know the fingerprint device's model/manufacturer/id? It may appear in lspci -v or lsusb -v. – Wilf Aug 15 '14 at 19:25
    
According to the Arch Linux wiki, you might need to reboot or add yourself to the plugdev and scanner groups (you should alread be in the plugdev group). – muru Aug 15 '14 at 20:50
    
how I add my user on the 'plugdev'??? – Yosved Villar Apr 15 '15 at 22:34
    
Read man useradd and do something like sudo useradd --groups=plugdev,scanner $USER. Then logout - groups are only applied at login time. Well, not exactly, but logout/login is the easiest way. – waltinator Aug 4 '15 at 6:49
    
Can you see the fingerprint reader in the output of sudo lspci -v or sudo lsusb -v? If so, please edit your question to share the information. – waltinator Aug 4 '15 at 6:52
up vote 36 down vote

I tried both Fingerprint Gui and FPrint in my Thinkpad W550S. Fingerprint Gui had a nice interface, but was pretty unstable on the login page and sudo and constantly crashed.

FPrint seems more simple, but works very well:

For Ubuntu 16.04 or greater:

sudo apt install libpam-fprintd fprint-demo

For Ubuntu 15.04 or less

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:fingerprint/fprint
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libfprint0 fprint-demo libpam-fprintd gksu-polkit

After that, you can test it by running fprint_demo and save the fingerprint with fprintd-enroll. This will automatically make your login screen require a finger swipe instead of a password.

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gksu-polkit does not exist in 2015.10 but seems to be installable: askubuntu.com/questions/653459/… – Nicolas Raoul Jan 5 '16 at 9:07
    
Actually no need to install gksu-polkit it seems. – Nicolas Raoul Jan 5 '16 at 9:15
    
the question was for 14.04. I didn't tested it in latest versions. But thank you anyway. – Kostanos Jan 5 '16 at 15:02
4  
For 16.04, apt-get install libpam-fprintd was sufficient to get fprintd-enroll and functioning login page. – Samuli Kärkkäinen Sep 20 '16 at 10:35
1  
after setting this how to get back to entering the password – Kasun Siyambalapitiya Nov 7 '16 at 9:23
up vote 3 down vote

Fprint worked perfectly on a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon under Ubuntu 14.04. I strictly followed the instructions :

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:fingerprint/fprint
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libfprint0 fprint-demo libpam-fprintd

and finally saved my fingerprint with fprintd-enroll. I can now login and validate my sudo access with a finger swipe !!

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Oh wow, had my T440s for 3 years and just now realized that fprint works wonderfully. That's pretty sweet! – Ibrahim Jul 7 '16 at 23:19
    
what is the difference in your answer from the previous one? – Kostanos Jun 15 '17 at 14:07
    
@AlbinFreycenon will this works on x1 carbon 5th gen? – Kasun Siyambalapitiya Sep 17 '17 at 5:20
up vote 1 down vote

On my Thinkpad X220, I had to enable the fingerprint reader in BIOS (tap F1 repeatedly after starting the computer).

After that, fprint_demo works in the sense that it runs, but it fails to read any fingerprint data ("Bad scan. Please remove your finger before trying again.").

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1  
I just want to use like i was using it on windows. – Yosved Villar Nov 14 '16 at 0:04

protected by Community♦ Sep 1 '16 at 0:06

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