eID-Software in 5 steps on Ubuntu 12.04 Lts, 14.04 Lts, 15.04

Card Reader: ACR38 usb:
(But any generic card reader should work)

In Belgium, the eID (Electronic ID card) is widely used to sign-on into many governmental services. (ex. Fedict, Student@work, beConnected, eBirth, myBelgium, TaxonWeb, Horeca@work, MyPension, eBox ...)

Installing an eID card-reader in Linux is not as strait forward as it could be.

I've used the following procedure to install it on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS & 14.04 LTS and on Crouton version of 14.04 LTS of my Chromebook.


I will explain in 5 steps how to get your ACR38 eID card reader working in Linux.
(For Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04 & 15.04, but probably works on other Debian based distro's as well )

1. Before you can start, there are a few library dependencies your need to take care of.

Needed:

pcscd 

Optional:
(if you want to compile from source code, and/or experiment in other applications)

build-essential, libgtk3.0-cil, gtk3-engines-unico, unity-gtk3-module, libpcsclite1, libpcsclite-dev, libccid

At the command prompt (CTRL+ALT+T) type:

sudo apt-get install pcscd 

or if adding the optional parts too: (not strictly needed for normal operation)

sudo apt-get install build-essential libgtk3.0-cil pcscd libccid libpcsclite1 libpcsclite-dev gtk3-engines-unico unity-gtk3-module

2. Adding the eID repository to your system

Download eID.archive.deb from eid.belgium.be
Save the file (eid-archive_2015.4_all.deb) on your drive.

Open a terminal session and type at the command prompt:

sudo dpkg -i [path to your file]eid-archive_2015.4_all.deb
(example: sudo dpkg -i /home/username/Download/eid-archive_2015.4_all.deb )

sudo apt-get update

3. Install the eID driver and viewer

sudo apt-get install eid-mw eid-viewer

4. Testing the reader:

First start the card service by the following command at the command prompt:

sudo service pcscd start


Test if the service is running with:

sudo service pcscd status


start the eID viewer from the menu, and read your ID.
Installation almost complete!

5. Add-on for the browser (FireFox)

Install the FireFox add-on eID-België 1.0.18.1-signed
Test the Reader on the website @ test.eid.belgium.be

Installation Complete!

Good luck.

NOTE:
The pcscd service should also be installed with the regular eid-mw application install, but I've seen obscure situations where it didn't work and failed. Therefore install it manually as explained in step 1.

You could add the pcscd service to your startup procedure to conveniently start the service automatically during the initial boot-time. However, unless you are planning on using the reader regularly, I would recommend to not do this, and manually start the service when you need it. (save yourself some resources and boot-time, and only start it when needed)