Goodix Fingerprint Sensor (27c6:538d) not detected on Dell Inspiron 5409

Hardware Support
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1

Hello everyone,

I am trying to get the fingerprint scanner working on my Dell Inspiron 5409 running Zorin OS.

Running lsusb shows my device as: Bus 003 Device 002: ID 27c6:538d Shenzhen Goodix Technology Co.,Ltd. FingerPrint

What I have tried so far:

  1. Installed the base services (fprintd and libpam-fprintd).
  2. Added the proprietary Dell Ubuntu repositories (focal-dell, focal-oem, focal-somerville).
  3. Installed the closed-source Dell driver: libfprint-2-tod1-goodix.
  4. Rebooted the system.

The Issue: When I attempt to run fprintd-enroll or sudo fprintd-enroll, the terminal immediately returns this error: Impossible to enroll: GDBus.Error:net.reactivated.Fprint.Error.NoSuchDevice: No devices available

From my understanding, the official Dell tod1 driver might be hardcoded for the 538c hardware revision, completely ignoring my 538d revision.

I have since removed the Dell repository and the incompatible driver to keep my system clean. Has anyone successfully reverse-engineered or found a working driver for the 27c6:538d Goodix sensor on Zorin OS? Any guidance on community patches or custom firmware would be highly appreciated!

2

Hello and welcome,
following what I found I made somme change for you

sudo apt update

# tools you’ll likely need for the build/venv
sudo apt install -y git python3 python3-venv python3-pip

# Create a Python venv for goodix-fp-dump
python3 -m venv goodixenv
source goodixenv/bin/activate

pip install pyusb crcmod

# Get firmware flashing + USB tooling
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/goodix-fp-linux-dev/goodix-fp-dump.git
cd goodix-fp-dump

# Sanity-check the PID
sudo lsusb -vd "27c6:" | grep "idProduct"

# Flash for 538d
sudo python3 run_538d.py
3

I don't think you've missed an installation step. Since lsusb detects 27c6:538d but fprintd-enroll immediately returns NoSuchDevice, it usually means libfprint doesn't have support for that specific Goodix revision rather than there being a configuration issue. I've seen similar reports where the Dell libfprint-2-tod1-goodix package works for some Goodix sensors but not for 538d.

Before spending more time experimenting, I'd check whether your device is listed as supported in the current libfprint release or whether anyone has added support for 27c6:538d in newer development builds. If it isn't supported yet, there may not be a reliable workaround besides waiting for upstream support. If you do find a newer patch or branch that recognizes 538d, I'd be interested to hear how it goes.