this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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That's not truly 200. A quick look at the list shows the same model over and over again. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/gc8a2e/i_finally_found_a_cheap_usb_fingerprint_reader/ here are a ton of people complaining about them 3 years ago. The climate likely hasn't changed in the Linux world about fingerprint readers.
That's incorrect - check the hardware IDs, they're different. If it's the same model they'll have the same hardware ID.
Your linked thread is also from three years ago - that's a long time in the Linux world where things change quickly. I could just as easily dig up a thread about x not working on pretty much any topic, so it's not really evidence of anything.
Edit: I just checked the Gitlab releases page for libfprint. Not only have they added more devices (that aren't listed on the page that I linked previously), it also proves that support for many new devices have been added over the last three years. So claiming that nothing has changed in these past three years, is being disingenuous towards the good efforts made by these devs.
Same model, different device id. It happens. There are tons more of device IDs out there that don't work on Linux than those ones that do.
I'm not going to waste money and time proving it but this is a deeply seeded flaw of the Linux community. "Oh these things don't work" is always met with "oh it does you just have to take some impossible steps like decoding this list of USB IDs into actual products you can buy. No, you can't just use any random fingerprint reader which totally works on Windows. It Has to be the exact id on the list. Could be marketed as the same model but you have to make sure you have the right id before you buy it somehow. Good luck!" No business is going to deal with that and only hobbyists into modifying their computer is going to use the OS. Everyone else wants to use their computer to do things, not have their computer as a project in itself.
@MJBrune @d3Xt3r Overall I understand your opinion and based on your needs Windows is probably the best solution.
I do however, disagree with the statement about the Linux community. Firstly, if a device doesnt work "out of the box", the manufacturer is able to provide a driver for their device, or submit the driver directly to the kernal via a merge request so that the "out of the box" scenario does work.
When that hasn't happened the community WILL help you, this help is NOT a "flaw"!
No the flaw is in the narrative that it works just as well as windows. I've used Linux as a desktop for almost a decade before giving it to Windows. It has never been as easy to use as windows and likely won't get there. There are a huge number of reasons why but the biggest one is that the community doesn't point out flaws in the operating system. When people do it's met with that it works well enough if you jump through hoops and walk backwards and pray. It's not working well enough for lots of people and it's time to acknowledge that so we can fix it. Not push away the problems.