The Touchpad and Fingerprint Reader

Haven’t seen a description of exactly what the fingerprint reader protects. Is it only for logging into the OS or is it required to boot the computer? I hope the BIOS can be configured so that a fingerprint unlocks the boot process and not just to log into Windows after the computer is up and running.

If it doesn’t inhibit booting, I would like it if we had an option to require a specific (my) Yubi key to be present in order to boot and launch any OS or to access the BIOS settings.

2 Likes

This question will likely reveal how old all of my current laptops are:

I just noticed this track pad doesn’t have buttons.
How does someone right click with one of these?

2 Likes

You can right click with this by pressing or clicking with two fingers instead of one. Alternatively, you can switch the right side of your touch pad to a right-click (Not sure about this on windows but it’s true for me on Linux).

3 Likes

@Kyle_Clements
A lot of the newer thinkpads still has left and right click buttons by the trackpad but then you don’t need to use them. Almost all new computers have trackpads with built in left and right click so if you press down on the left or right hand side of the trackpad, it will act as a left or right click. It’s quite hard to explain, I would recommend you go in an electronics store and find a laptop on display and try it for yourself. Ask your in the store how the trackpads work, they are usually quite good at explaining those things.

2 Likes

Usually, the bottom edge of the trackpad simulates the left and right click buttons - so either tap/click with two fingers, or click on the bottom right of the trackpad :slight_smile:

3 Likes

The touchpad sounded great, until I read this detail. Assuming @jeshikat is right about the hinge, will it be practically feasible for users to experiment with other kinds of touchpads, assuming they have sufficient skills in electronics, programming, etc. and are willing to modify their Framework in the process? Or do Framework themselves perhaps plan to offer other options?

Subjectively speaking, I’ve never liked using hinged touchpads of any kind in the past and I wouldn’t expect the user experience to be radically different with Framework’s touchpad, however well-engineered it is in other respects. (Personally I’d prefer to use a hingeless capacitive touchpad – ideally with a few physical buttons to make middle-clicking easy, though a pressure-sensitive touchpad might be able to emulate three buttons well enough; for example something from the Cirque GlideSense series might work – that’s just the first example I found of a hingeless and pressure-sensitive touchpad).

If the touchpad simply communicated directly with the mainboard I’d expect it to be relatively straightforward to experiment with other options (possibly involving simple electronics work, 3d printing, etc. to make them physically and electronically compatible with the Framework), but the blog post notes:

Like all modules in the Framework Laptop, the touchpad is easy to replace if you ever need to. We also routed the keyboard and fingerprint reader signals through it, simplifying the system to have a single cable that connects all of the input devices to the mainboard to make upgrades and repairs easy.

…and it’s not clear from that brief description how nontrivial it would be to integrate a third-party touchpad using, e.g., an I2C or USB interface with the single-cable system. (Maybe it would be doable using a small microcontroller integrating all three signals and routing them to the mainboard itself, or something along those lines.) I’ll look for documentation that might clarify things, but additional insight from people who understand these topics better than I do would certainly be appreciated! :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes

Hi all,

Sorry for asking silly questions.

I’m trying to make work the fingerprint sensor in my PopOS Linux, and apparently I can’t find the device.

Do we know through which interface it connected, and what is device ID?

I would love to make it work,
-rth

UPDATE
Oops, found it!

ID 27c6:609c Shenzhen Goodix Technology Co.,Ltd. Goodix USB2.0 MISC
1 Like

The touchpad itself seems nice, better than the one I’m coming from, but it is poorly positioned (and maybe too big?); It is centered on the chassis instead of the space bar, so my right palm is constantly coming in contact with the touchpad resulting in lots of cursor movement and accidental clicks. I hope we can get an option in the future that has the touchpad centered on the space bar instead. I’m trying to reposition my hand to adjust, but it is awkard and I keep creeping back into my usual position that is not an issue on my old laptop or well any other keyboard I use.

1 Like

The fingerprint reader doesn’t work for me on Windows Ameliorated (AME). I know it’s a bit niche, but AME support would be dope.

The burden of responsibility for hardware support on heavily modified versions of Windows lies solely with the distributors of those modified versions. This is especially given that the Framework drivers work on every other version of Windows 10 and 11.

It looks like AME disables the “Windows Biometric Service”. I would expect that to be somewhat important for biometric login. :slightly_smiling_face:

5 Likes

Could we make this a link, still trying to find those instructions ?

1 Like

I’m not use touchpad. I’m use trackpoint only and disable the touchpad on my old ThinkPads X220 and T420.
I could not buy the Best Notebook In The World like my old ThinkPad X40. The X201 is last of really good notebook. Newest keyboards has no enough keys. Other brands like HP make not so ergonomic and precision trackpoints. Could Framework do?

Here is a link from another post I shared getting the fingerprint reader to work within Pop!_OS 21.10.

Hope this helps you

I would love to swap out the trackpad with a new mechanical three button version. A middle mouse button is super useful with CAD software. How about a setup with three bottom button and three to 6 buttons on top that are customizable hot keys.

1 Like

I have a DIY model with Windows 10 Pro. I installed the chipset drivers and the firmware upgrade, but I cannot figure out how to make the fingerprint reader work. It’s not mentioned in the setup instructions.

I do not use windows as my primary OS, but I am hoping this page can help you:

it details the “sign in” Options. This seems to be similar to what I had to do on the Linux side to get the fingerprint reader used at a system level – to log in, to use with 1Password (and application), etc.

Good luck

Problem solved, thanks. But the short answer for Windows 10 is:
Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options
In retrospect, I probably should have thought of that.

I’d love to hear that Framework is working on alternative touchpad options, particularly for those of us that live and die by the touchpad. I’m just getting a full week into use of my new Framework laptop. The feel is great and the design is great. It looks good, and it’s butter smooth to the touch. It’s responsive as well - no latency.

By far the most frustrating part of the entire Framework laptop user experience is the awful functional issues of touchpad. Most common problem is that of slide-clicks - where you go to click something using the press action, and without my finger actually moving, the cursor moves while clicking and either misses the button or worse, hits something else. It overshadows everything else. I band-aided mine by applying a patch of VHB tape in the shape/size of a touchpad button over the left-click area of the pad, topped with matte Scotch tape, which gives an identical finger-feel to the smooth glass touchpad surface. That prevents the pad from registering my finger there (like a hardware button). But I still end up with slide-clicks, somehow - though significantly reduced.

It really seems like it should be possible to design a pad with hardware buttons to fit in the same space (especially since my VHB tape fix extends ~1mm above the pad, yet the screen still closes fine - a real designed button area would likely be thinner). Modding-in such a thing is likely near impossible, given that the pad needs to be built to dimension spec, and the vertical size would need to be reduced for button space.

I just really, really, desperately wish companies didn’t try to copy Apple’s design, without copying what made it possible (excellent software/drivers/filtering and tons of refinement of the click mechanic), in the first place. It just ended up souring the whole computer experience by trying to shove a half-thought idea into the thing, and assuming everyone will use a mouse (I don’t).

I wish the Framework laptop made me as happy to use as the ThinkPad P52’s touchpad does. That thing is absolutely the benchmark for the best-performing touchpad I’ve ever seen in a Windows laptop. Maybe a point of reference, there?

2 Likes

100% this.

I am in month number 5 and this is probably my only complaint about the machine.

Other then this happening (infrequently) the machine and touchpad are amazing!

1 Like

Any chance for an upgrade module with physical TouchPad buttons in the future?

1 Like