"Windows Hello"-like fingerprint scanning on Zorin OS

General Help
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1

Is there any way to make the fingerprint scanner work like the Windows Hello one, where you tap to scan your fingerprint rather than swipe to scan?

My fingerprint doesn't work at all when swiping anyway - it always tells me that the swipe is too short:

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image1866×1409 76.9 KB

I think it might be because my fingerprint button is skinny.

I recently switched from Windows 11 to Zorin OS (no dual boot, just Linux from now on), and I'm so happy with everything so far except for the fingerprint scanning experience.

2

See if your device is listed (tap support) using your terminal:

fprintd-list $USER

Remove any previous saved swipes (Swiper, stop swiping)

fprintd-delete $USER

See if you can tap instead of swipe:

sudo fprintd-enroll --debug

Look for enroll stages or fingerprint type: press in the output.
If fingerprint type: press is shown, we can try to Force it to use tap instead of swipe:

sudo nano /etc/pam.d/common-auth

Arrow key down to

# prime the stack with a positive return value if there isn't one already;
# this avoids us returning an error just because nothing sets a success code
# since the modules above will each just jump around
auth    required                        pam_permit.so
# and here are more per-package modules (the "Additional" block)

What you want to modify is this line auth required pam_permit.so

Change it to auth required pam_fprintd.so enable_press=1

Now tap ctl+o to overwrite, then enter key to save current configuration. Tap ctl+x to exit the editor.
Restart the service:

sudo systemctl restart fprintd

Try tapping instead of swiping:

fprintd-enroll

1 Like
3

Hi Aravisian,

So these are the outputs for the first three commands:

joe@joe-Vivobook:~$ fprintd-list $USER
found 1 devices
Device at /net/reactivated/Fprint/Device/0
Using device /net/reactivated/Fprint/Device/0
User joe has no fingers enrolled for ElanTech Fingerprint Sensor.
joe@joe-Vivobook:~$ fprintd-delete $USER

found 1 devices
Device at /net/reactivated/Fprint/Device/0
Using device /net/reactivated/Fprint/Device/0
No fingerprints to delete on ElanTech Fingerprint Sensor
No fingerprints to delete on ElanTech Fingerprint Sensor
joe@joe-Vivobook:~$ sudo fprintd-enroll --debug
[sudo] password for joe:            
couldn't parse command-line options: Unknown option --debug
joe@joe-Vivobook:~$

--debug seems to not be a real flag and when running sudo fprintd-enroll --help, there's no flag that indicates a debugging flag.

Although, I still went ahead with the rest of the commands and I broke my login unfortunately (whenever I would input my password, Zorin would say that the password is incorrect or the login screen would be stuck in a loading state).

I went into recovery mode and commented out auth required pam_permit.so with nano, and I managed to log back into my laptop. I guess It's not possible to enable fingerprint tapping, which is such a big shame :frowning:

I would appreciate if you have any other ideas, but if not, thanks a lot for looking into this!