Bug 1040206

Summary: Fingerprint reader is detected in Yast's Hardware Information, but cannot be configured anywhere. (ThinkPad L430)
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE Distribution Reporter: Moritz Rakow <moritzrakow>
Component: YaST2Assignee: E-mail List <yast2-maintainers>
Status: RESOLVED FEATURE QA Contact: Jiri Srain <jsrain>
Severity: Enhancement    
Priority: P4 - Low CC: okurz
Version: Leap 42.3   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: x86-64   
OS: Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: --- Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---
Attachments: Saved file from Yast's Hardware Information module.

Description Moritz Rakow 2017-05-22 16:35:44 UTC
Created attachment 725921 [details]
Saved file from Yast's Hardware Information module.

## Overview

The fingerprint reader of my ThinkPad L430 laptop is detected in Yast's Hardware Information, but cannot be configured in Yast or Gnome Settings.

## Actual result

The only mention of the fingerprint reader is in the Hardware information module, and no configuration is possible.

## Expected result

The fingerprint reader can be configured in yast, Gnome settings, or both to be used for authentication. Alternatively, some reason why this is not possible should be displayed to the user (or be mentioned in the help).

## Build date and hardware

Build 0246 on Lenovo ThinkPad L430, installed from USB/DVD 64bit iso.

## Additional information

/home is encrypted ext4, desktop is Gnome
Comment 1 Stefan Hundhammer 2017-05-23 10:35:26 UTC
There is not a YaST module for everything.

Having said that, we used to have a yast2-fingerprint-reader module, but it was dropped 4 years ago (I asked my team mates around here, but so far I have not received an answer why).

  https://github.com/yast/yast-fingerprint-reader

There is some documentation in our SDB about this topic:

  https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Using_fingerprint_authentication

Please notice that the part about that YaST module is now outdated.



While I would also welcome good support on Linux for the fingerprint reader on my Lenovo laptop, its use unfortunately pretty limited: Unlike on Windows, it does not take care of the complete login process, it can merely be a substitute for entering the password. The underlying back-end software appears to be somewhat limiting.


There is a package fingerprint-gui, but I have not tried that yet, so I cannot comment how useful it is or how well it works. You could give it a try.

Bringing back YaST support for that hardware would be a feature request; marking this bug as such.
Comment 3 Stefan Hundhammer 2017-05-23 11:28:59 UTC
I just got an answer why the old yast2-fingerprint-reader module was dropped:

https://fate.suse.com/313128 (probably not accessible to you)

"Drop the YaST2 FingerPrint reader module. It does not support modern hardware (where fingerprint data is stored directly in the laptop firmware)."

Later in the discussion there:

"We should switch to fprintd / pam_fprintd which features a D-Bus interface to configure and handle fingerprint reader. GNOME already have UI to communicate with this interface, I don't know for KDE."
Comment 4 Moritz Rakow 2017-05-23 12:22:50 UTC
In the Gnome Help it is mentioned that login via fingerprint can be configured in the settings (not visible to me, probably because the reader is not detected).

I installed the fingerprint packages (`fprintd`, `fprintd-pam`, `libfprint0`, and `libfprint-examples`) from the official repo and ran the demo, but no device could be detected.

`libfprint-examples` contains three demo programs, all of which reported "No devices detected." `fprintd-enroll` exists with "No devices available".

So it seems to be a question of hardware support.

For me personally, missing fingerprint support is not an issue, but I tested it because in the [QA google doc][1] it is marked as high-priority.

Secondly, we should probably update the SDB page on fingerprints, the fingerprint yast module was [dropped  in openSUSE 13.1][2] which was more than three years ago.

I've reopened the bug because the issue is not with a missing configuration feature in Yast, but with underlying hardware support.

[1]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AGKijKpKiJCB616-bHVoNQuhWHpQLHPWCb3m1p6gXPc/edit#gid=298435253

[2]: https://doc.opensuse.org/release-notes/x86_64/openSUSE/13.1/
Comment 5 Stefan Hundhammer 2017-05-23 12:30:42 UTC
Then please open another bug dealing with the hardware support side of this.

Just reassigning this to $WHOEVER will just result in neverending Bugzilla ping-pong, all the more because this discussion is YaST-centered. I already spent considerable time on this, and this must be sufficient.
Comment 6 Moritz Rakow 2017-05-23 12:58:48 UTC
ok, created Bug 1040378 for the hardware issue.