Introduction to USB Utils
The USB Utils package contains utilities used to display information about USB buses in the system and the devices connected to them.
Note
Development versions of BLFS may not build or run some packages properly if LFS or dependencies have been updated since the most recent stable versions of the books.
Package Information
USB Utils Dependencies
Required
libusb-1.0.26
Recommended
Wget-1.21.4
Installation of USB Utils
Install USB Utils by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr --datadir=/usr/share/hwdata &&
make
This package does not come with a test suite.
Now, as the root
user:
make install
To install the usb.ids
data file, using Wget-1.21.4, run, as the root
user:
install -dm755 /usr/share/hwdata/ &&
wget http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids -O /usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids
The script lsusb.py displays information in a more easily readable form than lsusb. To find the options, use lsusb.py -h. One form of use recommended by the developer is lsusb.py -ciu.
Configuring USB Utils
The usb.ids
data file is constantly being updated. To get a current version of this file, using Wget-1.21.4, periodically run again, as the root
user:
wget http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids -O /usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids
You should update the /usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids
file periodically. If you've installed Fcron-3.2.1 and completed the section on periodic jobs, execute the following commands, as the root
user, to create a weekly cron job:
cat > /etc/cron.weekly/update-usbids.sh << "EOF" &&
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/wget http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids -O /usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids
EOF
chmod 754 /etc/cron.weekly/update-usbids.sh
Contents
Installed Programs: lsusb, lsusb.py, usb-devices, and usbhid-dump
Installed Libraries: None
Installed Directories: None
Short Descriptions
lsusb
|
is a utility for displaying information about all USB buses in the system and all devices connected to them, but not in human friendly form
|
lsusb.py
|
displays information about all USB buses in the system and all devices connected to them in reasonable human friendly form
|
usb-devices
|
is a shell script that displays details of USB buses and devices connected to them. It is designed to be used if /proc/bus/usb/devices is not available on your system
|
usbhid-dump
|
is used to dump report descriptors and streams from HID (human interface device) interfaces of USB devices
|