So I’m shopping for a fingerprint reader to use on Linux desktop and found this list of fprint supported devices. The problem is that USB ID is not exactly the kind of information they advertise in marketplaces or product information pages, so I can never know whether the product I’m looking at is going to be detected at all.
I looked for reviews on Amazon of many candidates, but almost every review that mentions Linux support is a negative, so I feel that my odds here are not great.
Have you tried any device that worked with any distro, preferably out of the box?
Although I love modular solutions, I think biometrics are one of the few things that really need to be bundled with your device and locked down. At least if you care about security. If not, then don’t use a password in the first place.
To somewhat answer your question, though, you should consider solutions that allow you to unlock one trusted device with another trusted device. The most common example would be unlocking your desktop with your phone over bluetooth, especially if that phone comes with its own biometric sensor. Just make sure that secondary device is encrypted.
By that logic an mfa device like a Yubikey would also need to be fully integrated to a device to be secure. I don’t think security and modularity go opposite ways.
MFA requires multiple forms of authentication to gain access; as long as the bad actor doesn’t have your password, it’s not a big deal if they compromise your Yubikey. If you could gain access with only the Yubikey, then it would indeed be insecure.