How To Install hwdata on CentOS 8

hwdata is Hardware identification and configuration data

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install hwdata on CentOS 8.

What is hwdata

hwdata contains various hardware identification and configuration data, such as the pci.ids and usb.ids databases.

We can use yum or dnf to install hwdata on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install hwdata.

Install hwdata on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install hwdata using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install hwdata

Install hwdata on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install hwdata using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install hwdata

How To Uninstall hwdata on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the hwdata package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove hwdata

hwdata Package Contents on CentOS 8

/usr/lib/modprobe.d/dist-blacklist.conf
/usr/share/doc/hwdata
/usr/share/doc/hwdata/COPYING
/usr/share/doc/hwdata/LICENSE
/usr/share/hwdata
/usr/share/hwdata/iab.txt
/usr/share/hwdata/oui.txt
/usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids
/usr/share/hwdata/pnp.ids
/usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install hwdata on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.