On Fri, Mar 05, 2021 at 06:13:58PM -0500, Sam Hartman wrote: > >>>>> "Mark" == Mark Pearson <[email protected]> writes: > > Mark> It's just a case of needing the libfprint and fprintd packages > Mark> installed and then under settings->user you can start > Mark> registering your prints. > > Right, and the desktop maintainers could choose to make their desktop > meta packages depend on these two packages. > That was my point.
While this true, it would mean that the fingerprint readers would only work for those users who choose to install one of the desktops on their system that adds this dependency. If it is added to the laptop metapackage instead, then it will be made available on all laptops, which are more likely than other hardware to have a fingerprint reader. If it is instead installed by hardware detection (through https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/hw-detect), then it will be installed on all systems that have a fingerprint reader (and which don't have it disabled in the BIOS, which you should do at any rate if you're not interested in using it), regardless of whether they are a laptop, desktop, or server. However, the downside to this method is that unless there is a way to identify all fingerprint readers by way of a PCI or USB attribute (and I have no idea whether this is possible), you'll have to compile a list of vendor and product IDs, which by necessity will be forever incomplete. -- To the thief who stole my anti-depressants: I hope you're happy -- seen somewhere on the Internet on a photo of a billboard
