[fprint] Fprintd on Debian Squeeze ?

[Chow Loong Jin]

On 23/10/2012 06:32, Moritz von Schweinitz wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> This project is exactly what i have been looking for! I am trying to
> integrate basic fingerprint matching into a Point-of-Sale system,
> without having to mess aroung the details, and fprintd seems to fill
> that gap perfectly!
> 
> However: I can't get it to install in any 'clean' fashion on Debian
> Squeeze - i have already installed more than 10 packages that
> ./configure requested, and have been making slow progress, but now i'm
> stuck at:
> 
> Requested 'gio-2.0 >= 2.26' but version of GIO is 2.24.2
> 
> GIO seems to be a very essential package (or a part of Glib2), so i am
> a bit hesitant to install a non-standard (i.e. not blessed by debian)
> version on my machines.
> 
> There used to be a fprint package for Debian Sid, but that seems to
> have been discontinued in Squeeze.

http://packages.qa.debian.org/f/fprintd.html seems to indicate the fprintd
exists as a package in Debian. Try installing the fprintd and libpam-fprintd
package.

> [...]
> One more question: I am a bit at a loss regarding Linuxes complete and
> utter lack ofbiometrics support. There seem to be a gadzillion (ahem)
> 'well meaning' projects everywhere, but none really seem to get
> anywhere. Then there seems to be a standard BioAPI, but noone seems to
> use it.
> 
> Fprint seems to be the best approach - but as i just read in the
> mailing list archives, it seems to be really hard top buy supported
> fingerprint readers for this project.
> 
> So: am i right to assume that fprintd is the current cutting edge of
> linux fingerprint-matching? And if so, why are the big distros not
> supporting it like mad?

libfprint is pretty much the library everyone uses for fingerprinting on Linux.
fprintd is a daemon that allows for multiplexing accesses to the fingerprint
device, which is useful for authentication via PAM (see the libpam-fprintd package).

On the other hand, and YMMV, fingerprint-matching isn't bulletproof, and lots of
factors make it rather unreliable -- I needed to scan my finger ~10 times to get
it to match in order to log into my laptop. In the end I just gave up and
disabled it. Password logins are so much more convenient and reliable, at least
with my device.

-- 
Kind regards,
Loong Jin



-- 
Kind regards,
Loong Jin

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