FIngerprint reader on Lenovo ThinkBook

Ask Fedora
1

I just switched my ThinkBook 16 G7 ARP to Fedora 44 with KDE verison 6.7.5. Anyone know how to make the fingerprint reader work? I am never asked for a fingerprint on startup and I can’t find any mention of it in the system settings. Even if you can only tell me how to find the reader’s manufacturer or name, I would be grateful for the input.

2

If the fingerprint reader is seen by the system it should be identified in the output of the command lspci (or possibly lsusb)

Once you have identified it there are other options used with the commands above that can give more info and identify if the reader is active.

You also can usually see a lot of related info with the command inxi -ezxx (which may require installing inxi)

3

Once you’ve identified that the fingerprint reader is seen by Fedora KDE on your Thinkbook by using lsusb or lspci, go to System Settings > Users. At the bottom of that settings page there will hopefully be a button “Configure Fingerprint Authentication…” that you can press to start enrolling a fingerprint.

4

Thanks for the response, Jeff V! As a Linux beginner I am truly grateful for all input!

5

Thank you, Burgess, for the helpful guidance. It worked great! Unfortunately, I saw a note that said it was not yet possible to use fingerprint authentication for logging on.

6

Hi, not all of Lenovo fingerprint readers have a working driver for linux.

Run a lsusb and check the ID of your device and check this towards the Linux HW database.

I do have a working FP reader and my output look like this:

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 10ab:9309 USI Co., Ltd 
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 06cb:0126 Synaptics, Inc. 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

Hence the ID in my case is 06cb:0126.

7

Sorry, I didn’t read the whole thread. I thought there was still an open issue. I see now that it is solver.

8

Yes, that’s the case right now. However, users of other desktop environments where fingerprint login is available are sometimes prompted for their password after logging in (e.g. if they have Chrome or a Chromium based browser). This is because a fingerprint login does not unlock the keyring used by some applications.