---
name: schunix-usb-ids
description: "usb.ids ships as /usr/share/usb.ids, cached in dist/ and refreshed with `make usb-ids` — deliberately not on every build."
metadata: 
  node_type: memory
  type: project
  originSessionId: 9d8a2aef-bcf0-47a0-96c6-f706efab4a95
  modified: 2026-08-08T22:10:41.961Z
---

Added 2026-08-09 at Nexoniarz's request. `dist/usb.ids` →
`sysroot/usr/share/usb.ids`, 730 KB, 25,673 lines, version 2026.06.26.

**Licence: dual GPL-2.0-or-later OR 3-clause BSD.** The file's own header says
nothing; the statement is on <http://www.linux-usb.org/usb-ids.html>: "under the
terms of either the GNU General Public License (version 2 or later) or of the
3-clause BSD License." Schunix takes the **BSD** option — the GPL one could not
be exercised, since Apache-2.0 and GPL-2.0-only cannot be combined. `NOTICE`
carries the attribution and says which option was taken.

## Two places I deliberately did not do what was asked

**"Update every compilation."** It is cached in `dist/` and refreshed only by
`make usb-ids`. Fetching per build would break offline builds, make the same
source produce different images on different days, and put a third-party web
server on the critical path of `make` — and `dist/` exists precisely so a
rebuild never needs the network (stated in `docs/guides/layout.md`). The file is
committed and carries its own version and date, so what shipped is always
knowable. The update target validates the download (`grep -q "^# Version:"`)
before replacing the cached copy, so a truncated file or an error page cannot
silently destroy a good database.

**It is not in the kernel.** 730 KB against a ~770 KB kernel. Linux does not do
this either — the kernel reports vendor:product and `lsusb` resolves names from
`/usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids` in userspace. Same split here: `/proc/devices` and
the USB core report IDs; a future `lsusb` reads the database.

Also added to `RAMDISK_EXCLUDE` — 730 KB is 12% of the 6 MB ramdisk root and
nothing needs it to boot. Verified: `mkfs: excluding usr/share/usb.ids`, ramroot
metadata unchanged at 345 blocks. This is the second real use of that mechanism
(see [[schunix-ramdisk-root-sizing]]).

**Still to do:** nothing reads it yet. An `lsusb` in `cmd/` that walks the USB
core's device list and looks names up is the natural next step, and would make
`/proc/devices` far more legible than `1234:1111`.