On Fedora 45, fingerprint login for first login (GDM login screen) is disabled by default and not recommended. Fedora has removed this feature from the default configuration because fingerprints cannot unlock the keyring, and forcing fingerprint login typically results in being immediately prompted to enter a password to unlock the keyring after logging in.
Why It’s Not Recommended
Biometric authentication cannot retrieve the key that encrypts your keyring (which stores WiFi passwords, browser credentials, etc.). If you log in via fingerprint, the system cannot automatically unlock the keyring, so you will be immediately prompted to enter your password manually—resulting in a worse experience than simply entering your password to log in.
If You Still Want to Try…
…despite the above trade-offs and still want to enable fingerprint at first login, you need to manually modify the PAM configuration. Please note: This applies to standard Fedora Workstation (GNOME); other spins may differ.
Enable PAM feature: Run in the terminal:
bash
sudo authselect enable-feature with-fingerprint sudo authselect apply-changes
bash end
This will enable fingerprint support in the system authentication stack.
Next step, you Manually modify GDM configuration
Starting with Fedora 45, the real gdm-password PAM configuration is shipped in /usr/lib/pam.d/gdm-password rather than /etc/pam.d/ .
To get here, run this command in terminal
bash
sudo cp /usr/lib/pam.d/gdm-password /etc/pam.d/gdm-password sudo nano /etc/pam.d/gdm-password
bash end
In the file that opens, you want to add
“auth sufficient pam_fprintd.so”
(excluding the quotes) to the second line. Try to align it with other text lines on file i.e. auth (give space) sufficient(give space) pam_frintd.so
This line you are adding should be inserted after the first auth line(s) and before the auth substack password-auth / auth include password-auth line:
Save (Ctrl + S). Restart or Shutdown your computer. Login with fingerprint 🙂