In 12.04 LTS usbutils is shipping the file and hwdata is linking to it so this has been solved.
$ find /usr/share /var/lib/usbutils/ -name usb.ids -exec ls -l {} \; lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 May 8 2012 /usr/share/misc/usb.ids -> /var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 May 8 2012 /usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids -> ../misc/usb.ids -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 461454 Dec 26 2011 /var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids
$ find /usr/share /var/lib/usbutils/ -name usb.ids -exec dpkg -S {} \; usbutils: /usr/share/misc/usb.ids hwdata: /usr/share/hwdata/usb.ids usbutils: /var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids
In 12.04 LTS usbutils is shipping the file and hwdata is linking to it so this has been solved.
$ find /usr/share /var/lib/usbutils/ -name usb.ids -exec ls -l {} \; misc/usb. ids -> /var/lib/ usbutils/ usb.ids hwdata/ usb.ids -> ../misc/usb.ids usbutils/ usb.ids
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 May 8 2012 /usr/share/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 May 8 2012 /usr/share/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 461454 Dec 26 2011 /var/lib/
$ find /usr/share /var/lib/usbutils/ -name usb.ids -exec dpkg -S {} \; misc/usb. ids hwdata/ usb.ids usbutils/ usb.ids
usbutils: /usr/share/
hwdata: /usr/share/
usbutils: /var/lib/