I have a Toshiba P105-S9337 laptop that I acquired for $150. If I install the current Mint on it, will it have problems recognizing any of the hardware on it, particularly the UPEK fingerprint reader? I tried Kubuntu 9.10 on this system, but it failed to recognize the reader out of the box, and while I found what appeared to be packages to solve that I couldn't manage to get them successfully installed. Similar problem with openSUSE 11.2; I got one pacakge installed that claimed to enable it, but then... nothing. Even so I wasn't expecting the level of integration that is present in Windows, where there's a background process that volunteers the reader as an alternative for passwords in browsers and some other software, in addition to the basic login support.
Specifications, FYI:
http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content ... -S9337.pdf
BTW, the partitioning phase of Ubuntu's installer is absolutely horrid, at least for anyone who knows what he's doing but isn't a Linux expert. I use a specialized boot manager called BootIt NG, and so I didn't want Ubuntu to install grub in the MBR. The installer provided so little information about what it was doing that I had to install it TWICE from the CD in order to get grub installed in the root partition. Yes, I know there are other means to doing that without having to reinstall, but the time I would have spent (re-)learning how to do it would have been just as time-consuming as the reinstall. By contrast, I was easily able to ensure that grub went exactly where I wanted it in openSUSE; its installer was far more "transparent". (There were a number of things I liked about openSUSE, actually.)
UPEK fingerprint reader support
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There are no such things as "stupid" questions. However if you think your question is a bit stupid, then this is the right place for you to post it. Stick to easy to-the-point questions that you feel people can answer fast. For long and complicated questions use the other forums in the support section.
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
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VulcanTourist
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UPEK fingerprint reader support
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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richyrich
Re: UPEK fingerprint reader support
In the Package Manager, please search for thinkfinger . . . you will find 5 packages, the tools, the documentation, libraries, & the drivers. The PAM library was needed for an IBM that I have installed it on, so I installed all 4, didn't need the dev package though.
Hope this helps.
richy
Hope this helps.
richy
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VulcanTourist
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Re: UPEK fingerprint reader support
Thinkfinger is precisely the package I found for either Kubuntu or openSUSE or both. It didn't work, or at least I couldn't get it to work.
I have 15 different distros now, and I intend to try every single one of them until I find one that works. I have a Windows 7 Upgrade sitting here in the wrapper, but I'd like to keep it that way and get my money back. Thing is, Toshiba has released full updated hardware and utility support for Windows 7... nothing for Linux, and nada for Windows XP either. If I'm faced with weeks of fussing trying to get hardware to work, well... that wrapper is coming off.
So I gather the answer to my original question, then, is "Yes, it will have problems recognizing the hardware." That's unfortunate.
I have 15 different distros now, and I intend to try every single one of them until I find one that works. I have a Windows 7 Upgrade sitting here in the wrapper, but I'd like to keep it that way and get my money back. Thing is, Toshiba has released full updated hardware and utility support for Windows 7... nothing for Linux, and nada for Windows XP either. If I'm faced with weeks of fussing trying to get hardware to work, well... that wrapper is coming off.
So I gather the answer to my original question, then, is "Yes, it will have problems recognizing the hardware." That's unfortunate.