On 22/12/2007, Daniel Drake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Eddie Hung wrote: > > I'm a recent convert to libfprint - after having tried pam_bioapi and > > pam_thinkfinger on my IBM Thinkpad, and I must say that, even at this > > early stage of libfprint, it seems to work a lot better than the other > > two solutions - and for that I must commend the author! > > > > Allow me to make a few comments regarding things that aren't quite > > working as well as expected. I have done a quick search on the > > archives, and they don't seem to mention some of the issues I'm about > > to outline here. > > pam_fprint is the component you are using with all of these > applications, and pam_fprint itself is just a proof of concept: > http://www.reactivated.net/fprint/wiki/Pam_fprint > > I'm not expecting things to work very well at the moment. I'm still > working hard on the very lowest level of the system - fingerprint > scanning library code and device abstraction - and have not yet focused > on the bigger picture. pam_fprint was something I knocked up in 15 minutes. > > It seems that the applications you mention (and perhaps PAM itself) are > not really ready to move away from the "enter username then password" > approach. > > It is within my goals to produce a decent and comprehensive fingerprint > authentication solution, but it likely won't look much like it does at > the moment. Those tools will need to be reworked for a new interface. > > Before I move onto implementing a more suitable authentication > architecture and modifying desktops to use it, there is other library > work to be done first which I am working on. When this is done I will be > returning to the task of application integration - and doing it > properly. It will take time, but it's coming :) > > Thanks for the feedback, > Daniel >
It seems then, as quite a few people have responded in the past - that a lot of these problems lie at the application end - the desktop environment: GNOME, KDE, etc. However, I very much get the impression that it would be much harder to force anything onto upstream there, than it would be to here, a much smaller community whose focus is exactly what I'm trying to fix. For example, gksu has been broken to non-standard PAM modules for quite a long time - with apparently, no intention to fix it. What I would like to do is to patch the things that are broken, as a hobby - and have it thoroughly discussed and tested before sending it their way. Is that something I would be able to do? Thanks, Eddie _______________________________________________ fprint mailing list [email protected] http://lists.reactivated.net/mailman/listinfo/fprint
