How To Install usb-modeswitch-data on Debian 11

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install usb-modeswitch-data on Debian 11.

What is usb-modeswitch-data

usb-modeswitch-data is:

Several new USB devices have their proprietary Windows drivers onboard, especially WAN dongles. When plugged in for the first time, they act like a flash storage and start installing the driver from there. If the driver is already installed, the storage device vanishes and a new device, such as an USB modem, shows up. This is called the “ZeroCD” feature.

On Debian, this is not needed, since the driver is included as a Linux kernel module, such as “usbserial”. However, the device still shows up as “usb-storage” by default. usb-modeswitch solves that issue by sending the command which actually performs the switching of the device from “usb-storage” to “usbserial”.

This package contains the commands data needed for usb-modeswitch.

There are three methods to install usb-modeswitch-data on Debian 11. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install usb-modeswitch-data Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install usb-modeswitch-data using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install usb-modeswitch-data

Install usb-modeswitch-data Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install usb-modeswitch-data using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install usb-modeswitch-data

Install usb-modeswitch-data Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install usb-modeswitch-data using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install usb-modeswitch-data

How To Uninstall usb-modeswitch-data on Debian 11

To uninstall only the usb-modeswitch-data package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove usb-modeswitch-data

Uninstall usb-modeswitch-data And Its Dependencies

To uninstall usb-modeswitch-data and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 11, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove usb-modeswitch-data

Remove usb-modeswitch-data Configurations and Data

To remove usb-modeswitch-data configuration and data from Debian 11 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge usb-modeswitch-data

Remove usb-modeswitch-data configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove usb-modeswitch-data configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge usb-modeswitch-data

Dependencies

usb-modeswitch-data have the following dependencies:

References

• usb-modeswitch-data website
• usb-modeswitch-data on packages.debian.org

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install usb-modeswitch-data package on Debian 11 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.