To view the USB vendor and product ids in Linux you can use the CAT / LSUSB commands or a graphical viewer as described below. There may be other methods.
LSUSB command
If the optional USBUTILS package is installed on your system you can also obtain a list of USB devices using the LSUSB command.
The USB devices are listed in the following format:
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 066b:2213 Linksys, Inc. WUSB12v1.1 802.11b Adapter
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0eef:0001 D-WAV Scientific Co., Ltd eGalax TouchScreen
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
In the above example, the highlighted entry is a USB touch screen controller.
Cat Command
Open a terminal window and type cat /proc/bus/usb/devices. This is best performed with all other USB devices unplugged as sometimes it is unclear which device is which, especially if the description string has not been implemented in the device.
Typically, the output will be in the format shown below. For clarity, the USB touch screen is shown in bold, but does not appear highlighted in the actual output. The VID = 0AFA and the PID = 03E8. The manufacturer/controller id = TSC-10 DMC.
T: Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#= 3 Spd=1.5 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 1.00 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=00 Prot=ff MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0afa ProdID=03e8 Rev= 1.10
S: Manufacturer=TSC-10 DMC
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=a0 MxPwr=100mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=(none)
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 5 Ivl= 10ms
T: Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=01 Cnt=02 Dev#= 2 Spd=1.5 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=045e ProdID=0039 Rev= 3.00
S: Manufacturer=Microsoft
S: Product=Microsoft 5-Button Mouse with IntelliEye(TM)
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=a0 MxPwr=100mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=03(HID ) Sub=01 Prot=02 Driver=hid
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 4 Ivl= 10ms
Note: On SuSE 10.1 systems (and possibly others) the USB file system isn’t enabled by default. This should be enabled by editing the file "/etc/fstab" and change the line that says:
usbfs /proc/bus/usbfs noauto 00
to
usbfs /proc/bus/usbfs auto 00 and then reboot your system.
This is required to get the output of “cat /proc/bus/usb/devices”
Graphical viewer
Use a graphical USB Viewer available on the web such as USBview.
When run, this will show the USB devices, as shown in the following example: