[Thinkfinger-devel] The introduction of a new subscriber to the list, and questions, questions, questions.

[Jon Hermansen]

Hello!
My name is Jon Hermansen. First off I'd just like to say that I have used
UPEK's proprietary driver and have yet to try thinkfinger (I don't own a
Thinkpad... yet) but I am most certainly grateful that there is an
open-source alternative out there for me... and not just because it's free
as in beer. Because I would like to EXPERIMENT with it. I am SERIOUSLY
interested in buying a Lenovo Thinkpad T60p (because they are awesome) and
it looks like 100% or damn close enough to 100% of the hardware inside it is
supported in Linux. Well... that's not all. I'm considering the T60p as an
alternative to buying a Mac... and it seems like they are in fact a viable
alternative, as almost all the hardware inside is supported in OS X as well.
Now, I'm not considering installing OS X on any non-Apple machines (that'd
be illegal)... but if somehow I could rip a UPEK fingerprint reader out of
my soon-to-be precious T60p and hack it into a MacBook, could I get it to
work in OS X? It seems that we might be able to fill all of the
dependencies. Now, I don't know much about USB or drivers for that matter,
but I do realize that OS X has a much different kernel and as such drivers
might need to be written differently, or link to different API's (like
Apple's SDKs.) Correct me if I'm wrong? But as I did some more research, I'm
finding that:

- OS X supports PAM authentication
- OS X may be hackable to allow it to authenticate at the login screen
through any PAM module
- OS X has or can have gcc, libusb, and pam (provided by Apple)
- OS X has or can have libtool and pkg-config (if not provided by Apple,
provided by DarwinPorts or Fink)

Would anyone be willing to tell me why authentication on OS X would NOT
work, if it wouldn't, or would anyone be willing to check it out? I am
currently lacking the hardware but I'd be willing to test it in the near
future. Thank you!

- Jon Hermansen

[Timo Hoenig]

Hi Jon,

Post by Jon Hermansen
My name is Jon Hermansen. First off I'd just like to say that I have
used UPEK's proprietary driver and have yet to try thinkfinger (I
don't own a Thinkpad... yet) but I am most certainly grateful that
there is an open-source alternative out there for me... and not just
because it's free as in beer. Because I would like to EXPERIMENT with
it. I am SERIOUSLY interested in buying a Lenovo Thinkpad T60p
(because they are awesome) and it looks like 100% or damn close enough
to 100% of the hardware inside it is supported in Linux. Well...
that's not all. I'm considering the T60p as an alternative to buying a
Mac... and it seems like they are in fact a viable alternative, as
almost all the hardware inside is supported in OS X as well. Now, I'm
not considering installing OS X on any non-Apple machines (that'd be
illegal)... but if somehow I could rip a UPEK fingerprint reader out
of my soon-to-be precious T60p and hack it into a MacBook, could I get
it to work in OS X? It seems that we might be able to fill all of the
dependencies. Now, I don't know much about USB or drivers for that
matter, but I do realize that OS X has a much different kernel and as
such drivers might need to be written differently, or link to
different API's (like Apple's SDKs.) Correct me if I'm wrong? But as I

The low level bits in ThinkFinger are plain libusb. If one can use
libusb to talk to USB devices on OS X, it should not be very difficult
to get the fingerprint reader supported.

Oh, and before you really rip the device out of a running system: Have
a look at [1]. Though, that standalone device is not yet available (it
was announced a couple of weeks ago at this year's CES).

Post by Jon Hermansen
- OS X supports PAM authentication
- OS X may be hackable to allow it to authenticate at the login screen
through any PAM module
- OS X has or can have gcc, libusb, and pam (provided by Apple)
- OS X has or can have libtool and pkg-config (if not provided by
Apple, provided by DarwinPorts or Fink)

So you just answered my question regarding libusb. This all sounds like
it would not be very difficult to get ThinkFinger running on OS X.

Post by Jon Hermansen
Would anyone be willing to tell me why authentication on OS X would
NOT work, if it wouldn't, or would anyone be willing to check it out?
I am currently lacking the hardware but I'd be willing to test it in
the near future. Thank you!

To give a definite answer on that I'd have to play with the UPEK device
on my MacBook. Once I get my hands on the standalone reader I probably
can tell more.

Thanks,

Timo

[1] Eikon Fingerprint Reader
http://www.upek.com/products/usb.asp