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After running Powertop to do some tests with power usage, I realised that I have two USB devices listed that are not actually in use and that I would like to remove completely from my system.

USB device: usb-device-8087-0a2b
USB device: XiaoMi USB 2.0 Webcam (SunplusIT Inc)

When I installed Ubuntu I checked the option to automatically install drivers, so I'm going to suppose that's where these two came from.

Is there a way I can

  • Understand what the first one is
  • Figure out the drivers connected to both
  • Remove those drivers so that they wouldn't get activated anymore

I don't have any other information about what they could be and nothing else is connected via USB to the laptop.

I'm on Ubuntu 18.04.01 LTS

Edit: I checked in System Monitor and I can't find anything that could be related to them.

Edit 2: Running for device in $(ls /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/product); do echo $device;cat $device;done

Resulted in

/sys/bus/usb/devices/1-5/product
XiaoMi USB 2.0 Webcam

and lsusb

Resulted in:

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 8087:0a2b Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04f3:0c1a Elan Microelectronics Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05c8:03a2 Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., Ltd (Foxlink) 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Which should be the first

Edit 3: echo '1-5' | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind

Resulted in

1-5
tee: /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind: No such device
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    output of for device in $(ls /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/product); do echo $device;cat $device;done ?
    – j-money
    Sep 18, 2018 at 21:11
  • 2
    Please edit your question to add the result of the terminal command: lsusb I suspect the first isting is bluetooth.
    – chili555
    Sep 18, 2018 at 21:15
  • Added output of both commands with results, I'm still unsure what the bluetooth one actually is but how would I go about removing the Webcam in the meantime Sep 18, 2018 at 21:20
  • Nevermind I copied the wrong one, the bluetooth one is something related to intel so it's probably best to keep it. Sep 18, 2018 at 21:25
  • maybe try echo '1-5' | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind? to disable the webcam
    – j-money
    Sep 18, 2018 at 21:26

1 Answer 1

4

The first item is this:

USB device: usb-device-8087-0a2b  

A search for the usb.id 8087:0a2b suggests that is the bluetooth segment of the wireless/bluetooth card. Generally, in Settings, there is a slider to turn bluetooth off and on.

The second item is this:

05c8:03a2 Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., Ltd (Foxlink) 

Searching for that wording finds this page: https://certification.ubuntu.com/catalog/make/Cheng%20Uei%20Precision%20Industry%20Co.%2C%20Ltd%20%28Foxlink%29/

This seems to confirm that the device is the webcam. Next, we find this: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/webcam-not-recognized-4175495176/ That page suggests that the driver is uvcvideo. Confirm that it is loaded:

lsmod | grep video

If it is, and you wish to disable the device altogether, blacklist the driver:

sudo -i
echo "blacklist uvcvideo"  >>  /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
modprobe -r uvcvideo
exit

The driver has a long list of dependencies, one or more of which may load despite the blacklist. We may need to blacklist a few more after a trial and error.

EDIT: Reboot and see if there are any of these still loaded: uvcvideo,videodev,videobuf2-core,videobuf2-v4l2,videobuf2-vmalloc,media

If so, blacklist them one at a time and reboot and check again until none is left.

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    uvcvideo was loaded. I blacklisted it but the webcam is still there. Sep 18, 2018 at 21:59
  • See my edit above in a few moments.
    – chili555
    Sep 18, 2018 at 22:00
  • None were loaded, although I found video 45056 1 i915 not sure if it's related Sep 18, 2018 at 22:05
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    i915 is your video card driver; I doubt that it is related. Do not blacklist video. I think you are all set!
    – chili555
    Sep 18, 2018 at 22:09
  • If my answer has been helpful, please accept it: askubuntu.com/tour
    – chili555
    Sep 18, 2018 at 22:43

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