UPEK TouchStrip Sensor-only (147e:2016) on Linux
As part of my fprint fingerprint scanning on Linux efforts, I have completed a new driver for a popular bit of hardware that has been unsupported on Linux until now: the UPEK TouchStrip sensor-only variant with USB ID 147e:2016.
We have already supported another variant including a biometric co-processor for some time now, but in the absence of the co-processor, the sensor-only variant required a completely different driver. Support for the sensor-only devices is a significant step forward as this hardware can be found in a lot of laptops. I’ve already received some success reports - thanks!
The driver is only available in libfprint development repositories (not any released versions). System76 have created an installation guide which may be useful for keen users.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Congrats, Daniel, and good job! I know that there are lots of laptops out there with this chip; it was my single biggest (minor) worry when I was looking at ThinkPads several months ago. Everyone from Lenovo to HP has been building laptops with these readers; good to know that Linux users aren’t left out in the cold anymore. Thanks again for your efforts.
July 10th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Great!
This fingerprint reader was one of the two devices that didn’t work on my laptop (asus z37e).
I will give it a try.
Thanks a lot,
July 10th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Fantastic. Thanks so much, this works on a Sony Vaio SZ750.
Only thing I have trouble with is to get gksu working, i.e. accessing administrative tasks under gnome from the gnome panel fails, even if I scan my finger after menu item selection. Any tips?
July 13th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Hi,
I’ve compiled everything with no problems… However:
root@aqua:/opt/fpr/fprint_demo-0.4# pam_fprint_enroll
This program will enroll your finger, unconditionally overwriting any selected print that was enrolled previously. If you want to continue, press enter, otherwise hit Ctrl+C
No devices detected.
Do you know where is the problem?
I’ve got 147e:2016 UPEK TouchStrip sensor.
Thank you,
s0c
July 13th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Aaha, I can see now, I’ve compiled the wrong driver…
July 13th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I’m confused:
Upeksonly: The device sits on the USB bus with USB ID 147e:2016. The driver does not support the TouchStrip variants which include a biometric co-processor. Those ones are instead supported by the upekts driver.
Upekts: The driver does not support the TouchStrip fingerprint reader with USB ID’s 147e:2016 found in some of the newer ThinkPads. This version of the device is just a sensor (no biometric coprocessor) and is instead supported by the upeksonly driver.
So which one is for me? %-| :)
Thank you,
s0c
July 14th, 2008 at 2:58 am
Not sure that I understand your confusion, since both of those are correct. upeksonly says “I support 147e, the other variant is upekts.” upekts says “I don’t support 147e, use upeksonly”
but I took a guess at what is a little unclear and changed upeksonly to read as follows:
This driver supports fingerprint readers found embedded into many commercial laptops, including some System76 laptops and IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads. The device sits on the USB bus with USB ID 147e:2016. The driver does not support the TouchStrip variants which include a biometric co-processor. The co-processor variants have a different USB ID and are instead supported by the upekts driver.
As for it not working, you need to be using the latest git sources, not any released version. If you still have troubles, please use the mailing list.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Is it possible to use ths driver without libusb-1.0 ? I would prefer no to. Is it a feature libusb stable lacks or just a choice of implementation?
thanks
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I have tried it today, thanks a lot for your work !
The installation went OK, but I’m unable to verify my fingers after enrolling them…
Still playing, my best score is 10 minutiae :-(
My configuration: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS on Keynux Jet SR (based on Clevo M720R).
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:54 pm
It’s frustrating, I didn’t imagine it would be so hard to match my own fingerprints :D
I’ve managed to do it two times, then nothing.
What is good : the most or the less minutiae ?
July 31st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Installed fprint and companions (and libusb-1) and got it work - at least almost. As has already been mentioned a few times, I could rarely verify the fingerprint that I’ve enrolled. When can I expect a better scanning and/or interpretation of the image.
It took me some time to figure out how to use get able to use the latest software release. A hint on which file contains the utilities required (e.g. configure) and thus has to be “patched” in order to allow “making” the executable software would have saved me quite some time.
Thanks for the open source software - UPEK’s libraries are unusable for my notebook running under Linux x86_64, and they don’t have a 64 bit version - so much for the worth of closed source software.
My platform: Acer 6292, openSuSE 11.0 x86_64
August 14th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Will this be put into fprints main package before the Intrepid feature freze?