Utilizing fingerprint reader

The reader in my system was detected (using lsusb) as Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0483:2016 SGS Thomson Microelectronics Fingerprint Reader

I found fprintd totally useless but some docs pointed to fingerprint-gui Thanks to this utility I managed to get really good experience with the reader.

It lets you configure the device, enroll any fingers and test authentication.

Configuration

Before anything you need to configure PAM to use fingerprint auth. I wanted sudo and gnome-screensaver to ask me for a fingerprint, with password as a fallback. Both programs have their respective entries in Arch’s /etc/pam.d/ All you need to do is put auth sufficient pam_fingerprint-gui.so -d try_first_identified before the line containing auth .... pam_unix.so so the fingerprint will be asked before password.

Enroll fingerprints

Use fingerprint-gui to enroll fingerprints and test services.