Fingerprint Reader with Gnome

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1

What’s the trick to getting the fingerprint reader to work right with Gnome? I enabled fprintd. The Gnome settings panel under my user does not have the usual configuration option for adding a fingerprint.

If I use fprintd-enroll, I can add one, but GDM acts weird. It immediately says fingerprint didn’t work (as stated here (Gnome login fingerprint issue), but then does let me in.

But I still can’t manage my fingerprints in settings.

If I try and include the config for tod: services.fprintd.tod.enable I am told that option doesn’t exist, even though the docs say it does, from what I found.

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2

Also, gdm won’t let me type in a password. In the past, with Gnome fingerprint setup, I can either do fingerprint or type. But the type in box is disabled.

3

I don’t have any answers for you, sorry — but it would be useful if you can include:

  • what channel you’re on (22.05, -unstable, or something else); the difference between these is at its largest right now, just before the next release.
  • what hardware you’re using
4

Unstable, up to date.
Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon X1 Gen 9

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5

One last bump… am I the only one with this problem?

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6

fprintd is a dbus service which starts on demand, but apprently not fast enough. To have it running at all times, just start it at boot.

https://np.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/z7i83r/fingertip_tip_start_fprintd_at_boot_for_a_quick/

Apart from that, the general configuration for the fingerprint sensor on my Dell XPS 13 9310 is the following:

{
  services.fprintd = {
    enable = true;
    package = pkgs.fprintd-tod;
    tod = {
      enable = true;
      driver = pkgs.libfprint-2-tod1-goodix;
    };
  };
}
7

Thanks for the tip. I enabled fprintd as recommended, doesn’t seem to have changed my behavior.

Here’s a short clip of the issue. It’s strange. Fingerprint works. It just tells me it didn’t, as soon as I select my username for login. Plus, I cannot type in the password field no matter what.
https://workdrive.zohoexternal.com/external/507eb2c90839275e4a77cc791d3523b1d1d842c4d8f416cb94515d3d2778031c

8

Got some progress. I got the Gnome Settings User panel to recognize my fingerprint setup. I had to enable the right driver (which is weird that it worked at all without it).
For the Thinkpad Carbon X1 Gen 9 it is:

    fprintd = {
      enable = true;
      package = pkgs.fprintd-tod;
      tod = {
        enable = true;
        driver = pkgs.libfprint-3-tod1-vfs0090;
      };
    };

For GDM not allowing a password at all, found this bug with other reports. So it’s not just me.
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/171136

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