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how can I tell USB1 from USB2 hardware/software?!Hi, How can I tell if a computer's USB ports are USB1 or USB2? Also - how can I tell whether the OS running on a computer can handle USB2 or not? Thanks, VS Bookmark/Search this post with: 
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Normally you look at the
Normally you look at the documentation. With the Linux drivers you can execute "dmesg|more" and look for the messages about USB. You also get messages there when you plug in a USB device. Unless the software tells you something or there are markings on the device, it is impossible to tell whether you have a 1.0, 1.1, or 2.0 device.
The USB specification provides that 2.0 and 1.0 ports should be compatible (they will attempt to negotiate a usable speed). So you can use a 2.0 device on a 1.1 port (unless the device really needs transfer rates higher than 1.1) and a 1.1 device on a 2.0 port. Naturally there are bad USB chips out there which do not implement this properly, but you have to be pretty unlucky to have one of those.
USB2.0 has been in Linux for quite a few years now; unless you are running kernel versions earlier than 2.4.8 you probably have the drivers. Even with 2.2 you MIGHT have the drivers (but the USB drivers weren't really part of the kernel tree until about 2.4.8).
Which version USB?
With 'usbview' you can see the version of USB!
Eeltje de Vries