update-pciids

update-pciids [options]

-q, --quiet
    Suppresses all standard output, only errors are printed to standard error.

-v, --verbose
    Prints detailed debugging information about the download and update process.

--version
    Displays the version information of the update-pciids utility and exits.

-h, --help
    Shows a brief help message explaining command usage and options, then exits.

update-pciids is a utility program designed to refresh the local copy of the pci.ids file. This file contains a comprehensive list of known PCI vendor IDs, device IDs, subsystem vendor IDs, and subsystem device IDs, along with their corresponding human-readable names.

Tools like lspci rely heavily on this database to translate numeric hardware identifiers into recognizable names, such as "Intel Corporation" or "NVIDIA Corporation GeForce GTX 1080". Keeping this file up-to-date ensures that recently released hardware devices are correctly identified and displayed by PCI-related utilities.

The command typically downloads the latest pci.ids from a central repository, usually hosted by the PCI ID project, and replaces the existing local file, commonly located at /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids or /usr/share/misc/pci.ids. This update process is vital for system administrators and users who need accurate hardware identification, especially when dealing with newer or less common PCI devices.

This command requires an active internet connection to download the latest pci.ids file. It typically needs root privileges (or sudo) to write to the system's default pci.ids file location (e.g., /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids). The exact location of the pci.ids file can vary between different Linux distributions.

The pci.ids file, which is updated by this command, is typically stored in standard system directories such as /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids or /usr/share/misc/pci.ids. The precise location may differ based on the Linux distribution and its packaging of pciutils.

The update-pciids command usually fetches the pci.ids file from the official PCI ID Project website, commonly from https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/pci.ids or a configured mirror.

The pci.ids file and its updating mechanism have been an integral part of the pciutils package since its early development. As new PCI hardware is constantly being released, a reliable method to keep the local database up-to-date became essential. update-pciids (or similar scripts/functions) was developed to automate the process of fetching the latest pci.ids file, primarily hosted by the PCI ID Project (originally at pcids.sourceforge.net, now pci-ids.ucw.cz). Its development tracks the ongoing need for accurate hardware identification in Linux systems, evolving into an integrated utility within pciutils.

lspci(8), pci.ids(5), setpci(8), hwinfo(8)