[Fingerforce-devel] libpam-thinkfinger/libpam-fprint and screensavers

[Luca Capello]

Hi Daniel!

On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:43:05 +0100, Daniel Drake wrote:
> dererk wrote:
>> I was just about to mail team about this exact matter (plus Daniel's
>> async libusb, that should be discussed soon), what a bloody casuality
>> :-)
>
> I wouldn't suggest packaging libusb-1.0 yet, because the API is not
> stable. Same applies to libfprint-0.1 and fprintd - this stuff is
> going to be volatile for a while yet, but I'm working on it :)

It'd be fine if packages in experimental are volatile and really
unstable.  That's what experimental is for and it could help in having
more tests: more people involved (since they don't need to compile
anything) and better integration with other software (and Debian in
general).

Now that fprint landed in Debian, I'd like to get rid of ThinkFinger
ASAP: this is why I performed all those tests and I planned to perform
more (graphical login managers, graphical su/sudo and Qt software).
This is way I'm in favor of having the latest fprint in experimental.

>> I agree w/ you that 'plugdev' meets our need very well, something not
>> nice it implies refers to the creation of a new udev rule per
>> scanning device supported by thinkfinger/fprint.
>> I though it would be quite disgusting at first but, we'll have to
>> upload a new libfprint pkg with every new supported gadget anyway,
>> so, it's not a big trouble I think.
>
> Most other distributions do it differently: they put all usbfs nodes in 
> the "usb" group, and then you just add yourself to the usb group if you 
> want such device access.

The Debian 'plugdev' group plays a similar role.

> I believe this rule is responsible:
>
> SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", GROUP="usb", MODE="664"
>
> You might want to consider that approach as well.

I'm not sure Debian wants that every USB device has by default
read/write permissions for every user in the 'plugdev' group.  And
indeed special udev rules are installed for specific devices, like the
iRiver music players [1] or the cameras managed by gphoto2 [2].  So I
think ThinkFinger/fprint should do the same.

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca

Footnotes: 
[1] /etc/udev/rules.d/020_permissions.rules
    # iRiver music players
    SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",   GROUP="plugdev", \
            ATTRS{idVendor}=="4102", ATTRS{idProduct}=="10[01][135789]"
[2] /etc/udev/rules.d/025_libgphoto2.rules
    ATTRS{idVendor}=="0553", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0202", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"