Background
To support fingerprint on Ubuntu, the function is supported by libfprint.
As usual, not every device vendor supports Linux for their device.
The ways supporting a FP device on libfprint are:
- Device vendor contribute their code to libfprint.
- Community contribute to libfprint by reverse engineering.
- Device vendor provide a proprietary binary based on the libfprint-tod framework.
FP devices supported by opensource
The devices supported by way 1. and 2. could be found on the supported device list of libfprint.
e.g. Goodix is contributing to libfprint by way 1 on part of their devices.
FP devices supported by proprietary library
The 3rd way libfprint-tod was built from Ubuntu 20.04 by Marco Trevisan. It is a way for those Device vendors to contribute their dirver to Linux. Some vendors indeed have concern on protecting their algorithm for security or business. sofar, only Goodix is supporting part of their FP devices by 3 which will installed automatically on XPS 9300 ,XPS 9310 by oem_meta and hopfully for all Ubuntu certified machine have the supported goodix FP devices.
AFAIK, fingerprint vendors have limited resource supporting Linux, so the supporting might based on OEM request.