this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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This post is a bit older and it's possible that Mint does this automatically. The post goes through the process of setting up a fingerprint reader from scratch. If your system is detecting the device and it's a supported device* then PAM is likely misconfigured.
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=408129
It is possible that Mint now has a user friendly way of doing this... I don't really know Cinnamon (because I use Arch, btw) but whatever it is, it's configuring PAM underneath the GUI. You can configure PAM via the terminal, it even has a little TUI (spacebar to check and uncheck boxes).
*https://fprint.freedesktop.org/supported-devices.html
Then check the table against the numbers after ID in the output of lsusb. This is the VID/PID, a term you'll probable run into again.