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Fingerprint scanner & Trackpad Linux Driver?

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 11:08 pm
by Weboh
I have a Thinkpad Edged E540 that I'm thinking about installing Linux on. But one thing that I would want is support for its fingerprint scanner. It doesn't work natively, and I haven't found a place to get the driver yet. Does anyone here have experience getting it to work?

Also, the trackpad doesn't have multi-touch gestures, (two-finger scrolling, two-finger right-click and three-finger middle click are all are I care about) nor does the neat "the cursor keeps going when you reach the end of the trackpad" thing work. I use the trackpoint more often, but none of its buttons work. Is there a Synaptics driver package or something for Linux?

Re: Fingerprint scanner & Trackpad Linux Driver?

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 11:05 am
by evening_hunger
I wouldn't know about touchpad, I try to stay away from those;) Now about fingerprint reader, this is (in Debian-like Linux distributions) implemented with the libfprint library. For example Debian has libpam-fprintd package which should be installed by a package manager. There's a bit of (probably outdated) info here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_en ... hinkFinger

Again, my x220 doesn't have a fingerprint reader. My wife's x230 does, but haven't gotten around to configure it yet.

What is your distribution?

Re: Fingerprint scanner & Trackpad Linux Driver?

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 11:16 am
by Weboh
I heard about ThinkFinger, but I haven't figured out how to compile it. I'm undecided between Mint MATE and Ubuntu MATE.

I usually prefer a trackpoint, but it's useless without a right-click, and I really like its middle-click.

Re: Fingerprint scanner & Trackpad Linux Driver?

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 6:57 pm
by evening_hunger
Okay those are both quasiDebians. So issuing in the terminal something like:

Code: Select all

$sudo apt-get install libpam-fprintd
should get you a bit closer (maybe even solve it? dunno). Actually I might try with my wife's x230.