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From /usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids, on my system, Intel Corp. seems to have multiple USB vendor IDs:

# cat /usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids | grep 'Intel Corp'
042b  Intel Corp.
8086  Intel Corp.
8087  Intel Corp.

Why ?

conradkleinespel
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  • I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Could anyone explain please? This question is seems to be precisely about "managing information technology systems in a business environment" since I'm trying to understand how to manage USB devices on a Linux computer. – conradkleinespel Mar 04 '16 at 12:46
  • Instead of asking "why", which doesn't really matter, instead tell us what you are trying to do and how this affects your ability to do it. Otherwise, it just reads as someone asking about their curiosity. – EEAA Mar 04 '16 at 13:01
  • I asked the question out of curiosity, that's true. Is that bad ? Understanding how Linux works helps me in understanding what I can do with it. The `why` may not matter to you, but it matters to me, because I don't understand it. – conradkleinespel Mar 04 '16 at 13:07
  • It's not a bad question, and o did not down vote you for it. It's just off-topic here. As you'll read in the help section of the site, appropriate questions are about practical problems that you're actually facing. – EEAA Mar 04 '16 at 13:09
  • I'm facing a problem: I see stuff I don't understand. I guess I lost this battle, so let's agree to disagree. Thanks for taking the time to explain why this question was "put on hold". I appreciate it. – conradkleinespel Mar 04 '16 at 13:21
  • See there's the rub - you are having a problem, but you didn't tell us what that problem is. **Very frequently** we have people asking questions here *thinking* that they know the right solution to a problem, when in fact they're way off. I'm not saying that's the case here, but this is why we have the "practical, answerable questions" bit in the help center, and this is why we dig in, seeking for more information when questions like this pop up. – EEAA Mar 04 '16 at 13:33

1 Answers1

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USB Vendor IDs are assigned by the USB Implementers Forum, the usb.ids file is just the way how your system knows about that.

So if Intel has bought 3 vendor IDs (they are 5k$ a piece), it will appear 3 times there.

Also, looking at the specific IDs 8086 and 8087, that looks as if intel tried to make sure nobody uses ID's which look like their microprocessor chip names.

BeerSerc
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