Enabling the ThinkPad X250 fingerprint reader on Ubuntu

The fingerprint reader in the ThinkPad X250 has the same hardware ID as the X240:

138a:0017

Shame is, that ID still doesn’t seem to be supported in the stock libfprint. Good thing someone forked it and added drivers for newer devices.

Before that we need fingerprint-gui installed, without it there’s no fingerprint login or any of that:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fingerprint/fingerprint-gui
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libbsapi policykit-1-fingerprint-gui fingerprint-gui

Next, get the build dependencies ready.

sudo apt-get install build-essential automake checkinstall shtool libtool libxv-dev libmagick++-dev libusb-1.0-0 libnss3-dev

Clone the source, build and install. Install git first if you don’t have it.

git clone https://github.com/abbradar/fprint_vfs5011
cd fprint_vfs5011
./autogen.sh
make
sudo make install

According to this X240 guide, you also need to add and register the sensor’s hardware ID, but judging from the commit in the forked project, support for the newer sensor is already in there, so the later steps in that X240 guide are no longer necessary.

Next, add your user to the privileged group:

sudo usermod -a -G plugdev yourusername

Restart udev and you’re good to go:

sudo service udev restart

Find the program called fingerprint-gui in the Unity Dash, run it, and enroll your fingerprints. From then on, whenever you need sudo or log in, you can type your password or swipe a finger.

Of course, based on my experience, one, this forked support isn’t exactly stable, and two, swiping a finger is a pain in the ass and honestly less convenient than typing a password.

So I played with it for a bit and left it there.