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Questions tagged [usb]

USB is an acronym for Universal Serial Bus. The current USB standard is USB 3.0, which supports transfer speeds of up to 625 MB/s. USB devices are plug-and-play.

USB supports plug and play, which means that the operating system takes care of allocating system resources. The current maximum length of a USB cable can be about 5 metres, but it can be increased using a repeater cable.

While the Linux kernel contains a wide variety of device drivers, in some cases devices may not work right out of the box with Ubuntu and additional drivers need to be installed.

Wikipedia has more detailed information about the USB standard, covering:

  • Version history, including upcoming versions
  • Device classes
  • Connectors, plugs and cables
  • Power distribution
  • Signaling
  • Related and competing standards like Thunderbolt

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard [...] that defines the cables, connectors and communications protocols used in a bus for connection, communication, and power supply between computers and electronic devices. [...]

9137 questions
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How do you reset a USB device from the command line?

Is it possible to reset the connection of a USB device, without physically disconnecting/connecting from the PC? Specifically, my device is a digital camera. I'm using gphoto2, but lately I get "device read errors", so I'd like to try to do a…
cmcginty
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Can't format Ubuntu installation stick

I've made an USB installer stick from Windows with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS , now I'm trying to format it from Ubuntu. When I try to format I get this error : This partition cannot be modified because it contains a partition table; >please reinitialize…
Nephilim
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How to burn a Windows .iso to a USB device?

I want to burn a Windows ISO to a USB device in Ubuntu. How do I do this? I know how to burn a Ubuntu ISO into a USB device, but with a Windows ISO it's not the same.
alerbeham
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Detect and mount devices

I upgraded Ubuntu today and everything works smooth except that Ubuntu doesn't detect any other storage devices. My / and /home partitions work fine, but my other partitions are just not detected. I wouldn't mind, except the same problem goes with…
Calixte
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How to format a USB or external drive?

Using Ubuntu 11.10, how do I format an external or USB drive? I don't find an option to 'format' when I right click. In the new version, the drives don't come up on the desktop, but instead come on the Launcher.
Sudeep Halappa
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USB devices showing as read only

I am using Ubuntu 14.04. I have an 8gb FAT32 USB stick and a 500gb FAT32 HDD; both of these have suddenly become read only devices. I've tried deleting the directory inside /media and then creating it again, renaming it, then giving that directory…
oodles2do
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7 answers

Unable to delete USB Drive partitions (Block size error)

I have been unable to format/delete the partitions on my Sandisk Cruzer Force 32 GB USB Drive. I get the following error when deleting any of the partitions on it. `Error deleting partition /dev/sdd2: Command-line `parted --script "/dev/sdd" "rm 2"'…
Nectar
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How to set up USB for Virtualbox?

I'm using Ubuntu Maverick and Virtual Box 3+. I have Windows 7 Ultimate. The problem is that it doesn't detect USB drives in Windows 7, but USB peripherals (mouse + keybord) are working. I followed these instructions, but I can't find the user group…
kst
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USB turn write protection off

I have a USB which is write protected: dmesg | tail [10098.126089] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on [10098.126098] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 80 00 [10098.126779] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present [10098.126788] sd…
noob
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How do I find out whether my system has USB 3.0 ports?

I want to buy an external USB 3.0 drive and I wonder how to figure out whether my laptop has such a port (or only 2.0). Neither lsusb -v, nor /proc/bus/input/devices offers any obvious hints, although the former says a lot of 2.0 root hub which…
sds
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How to disable built-in Wi-Fi and use only USB Wi-Fi card?

The built-in Wi-Fi card in my laptop (Dell XPS M1330) is crap, pretty much. I have an Asus USB Wi-Fi card, which is significantly better and works fine. What I'd like to do is disable the built-in Wi-Fi card. Is there a way to do this without having…
Matt
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How do I allow non-root access to /ttyUSB0?

Since I updated from Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) to Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin), I am unable to access the device connected in /ttyUSB0 if I don't have root access. To be more specific, I use a USB-to-serial com port converter to access and…
yurividal
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System freezes/unresponsive/unusable when copying large file to USB

Yesterday I was copying a single, 8 GB file to a USB with a slow, 7 MB/s write speed, while my RAM is 3 GB. While copying the system froze, to the point where I couldn't even move the cursor. I managed to log into the text console, and ran iotop, it…
sashoalm
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Copy to USB memory stick really slow?

When I copy files to the USB device, it takes much longer than in windows (same usb device, same port) it's faster than USB 1.0 speeds (1MB/s) but much slower than USB 2.0 speeds (12MB/s). To copy 1.8GB takes me over 10 minutes (it should be < 3…
Eloff
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Ubuntu 20.04 - "Unhandled error message: The name 1.1001 was not provided by any .service file" when trying to mount Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro via USB

When I try to mount my Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro on my Ubuntu 20.04 via USB, I get "Unhandled error message: The name :1.1001 was not provided by any .service files" from Nautilus. It fails to mount. I have a Lenovo Y510p. Tried every USB port.
chila
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