KDE Plasma 5.24 Desktop Environment to Introduce Support for Fingerprint Readers

Plasma 5.24 Fingerprint

The upcoming KDE Plasma 5.24 desktop environment will introduce support for fingerprint readers to allow users to authenticate in to their Plasma sessions faster, easier, and more secure.

Renowned KDE developer Nate Graham shared today the big news that a fingerprint authentication feature, which is in development for quite a while now, has finally been merged and will be ready for deployment as part of the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.24 desktop environment series, due for release next year.

Fingerprint authentication support has been implemented in the Users panel in System Settings. There, users who have a fingerprint reader, either built-in in their laptop or as an external device, will be able to enroll, as well as to de-enroll fingerprints.

Once the fingerprint authentication feature is set up, you will be able not only to login using your finger, but to also authenticate in apps that require a password or administrative privileges. Here it is in action!

“So far we let you enroll and de-enroll fingers, and any of those fingers can be used to to unlock the screen, provide authentication when an app asks for your password, and also authenticate sudo on the command line! It’s really cool stuff,” said Nate Graham.

The KDE Plasma 5.24 desktop environment is slated for release on February 8, 2022.

Besides support for fingerprint readers, it promises numerous other new features and improvements, including the ability to enable, disable, and remove Flatpak repos in Plasma Discover, more Plasma Wayland enhancements, a slightly revamped lock screen, support for light and dark themes across all apps, keyboard navigation for the Network and Clipboard applets, and much more.

Until then, KDE Plasma 5.23 is here and it’s ready to conquer your Linux desktop. The second point release, KDE Plasma 5.23.2, will be available next week with preliminary support for the proprietary NVIDIA driver’s GBM backend, a feature that promises to dramatically improve the Plasma desktop experience for NVIDIA GPU users.

Last updated 2 years ago

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