Thinkpad T480 fingerprint reader support

faultymuse · February 1, 2022, 6:32pm

I have a Thinkpad T480 I’ve been using for a while and recently discovered the wonder that is Nix/NixOS. Unfortunately the built-in fingerprint reader (device ID 06cb:009a) did not have linux driver support until recently with the python-validity package. Looking around, it does not appear that there is currently any nixpkgs support for python-validity.

Does anyone know if there is actually support somewhere for python-validity (or a different driver for 06cb:009a although AFAIK python-validity is the only one) within the nix community? If one doesn’t exist, is it a reasonable approach to try to install python-validity by pulling the .deb file and installing it via something similar to this post? Should I instead just pull the code and have the derivation build from source instead?

nixinator · February 1, 2022, 8:52pm

I presume the services.fprintd.enable does’nt work on the t480.

github.com

NixOS/nixos-hardware/blob/87a35a0d58f546dc23f37b4f6af575d0e4be6a7a/lenovo/thinkpad/default.nix

{ config, lib, pkgs, ... }:

{
  imports = [ ../../common/pc/laptop ];

  hardware.trackpoint.enable = lib.mkDefault true;
  hardware.trackpoint.emulateWheel = lib.mkDefault config.hardware.trackpoint.enable;

  # Fingerprint reader: login and unlock with fingerprint (if you add one with `fprintd-enroll`)
  # services.fprintd.enable = true;
}

It’s a shame , the thinkpad hardware use to be very linux compatible, but not so much these days with inevitable march to windows…

if python-validity is not in nixpkgs, then open a packaging request on github, maybe a kind soul will do it for you.

You may find a clue on how to do it here. It may be in the Nixos User Repository.

faultymuse · February 1, 2022, 9:00pm

Yeah sadly the fingerprint reader in the T480 (06cb:009a) is not supported by fprint so if you just do services.fprintd.enable = true; and try to run fprint-enroll you just get “no devices available”. Python-validity solves this by providing an fprint driver for the device, however you also need a forked version of fprintd to make it work anyway.

Thanks for the links, they look very helpful I’ll have to take a look through them. I did not know about packing request issues on the github (although it makes perfect sense in retrospect). I might do that. Or maybe just submit a PR if I can get it working locally lol.

faultymuse · February 1, 2022, 9:05pm

Actually that repo by kurnevsky looks to be pretty much exactly what I’m looking for.

Thanks for much for the help, I feel kinda embarrassed now since apparently Google-foo isn’t up to par

nixinator · February 1, 2022, 9:07pm

Hey, nix/OS is a massive eco system, sometimes its just knowing where to look. I didn’t find nixos hardware repo for quite a long time myself…

If you get it working, then maybe get your first PR to nixpkgs, and maybe even update the nixos-hardware/lenovo/thinkpad/t480 at master · NixOS/nixos-hardware · GitHub with the fix.

silverdev2482 · May 1, 2023, 11:24pm

This may be of some use to you GitHub - ahbnr/nixos-06cb-009a-fingerprint-sensor: Nix flake for driving the 06cb:009a fingerprint sensor on NixOS