Installation using distribution packages

The Download page contains links to distribution packages.

Installation from sources

At first, check if libfprint and pam_fprint packages available for your distro.

Follow this way only if there's no packages for your distro!

You'll need gcc and some development packages installed.

Get libfprint sources.

Unpack libfprint-version.tar.bz2 somewhere:

tar -xjf libfprint-0.0.4.tar.bz2

Compile it:

cd libfprint-0.0.4
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

Last one command requires root privileges.

Use same technique for pam_fprint and fprint_demo.

Note that libfprint is young project, and its API isn't stable so you can broke pam_fprint and fprint_demo when updating to new versions. Reinstall pam_fprint and fprint_demo immediatelly after libfprint update.

Troubleshooting

Q: During pam_fprint configure I've got something like:

checking for FPRINT... configure: error: Package requirements ("libfprint") were not met

A: Probably, you've installed libfprint in /usr/local. Remove all libfprint's files from /usr/local and follow instruction in 2nd paragraph

Q: I've installed libfprint into /usr, but pam_fprint's configure still complains about missing libfprint!

A: Try to invoke following command before running configure:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH

Q: Running pam_fprint_enroll and fprint_demo from user fails with message like following:

aes1610:error [dev_init] could not claim interface 0

A: You have no permissions to access /proc/bus/usb (/dev/bus/usb). Solution depends on distro. On Gentoo you should add your user to usb group. Same solution should be applicable for other distros. Invoke mount | grep usb, it should produce something like:

anarsoul@anarsoul-laptop ~ $ mount | grep usb
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,devmode=0664,devgid=85)

So, /proc/bus/usb belongs to group with gid 85. Now let's get group name:

anarsoul@anarsoul-laptop ~ $ cat /etc/group | grep 85 | cut -f 1 -d:
usb

Add your user to this group:

sudo usermod -a -G usb your_user_name