USB is an acronym for Universal Serial Bus. The current USB standard is USB 3.0, which supports transfer speeds of up to 625 MB/s. USB devices are plug-and-play.
USB supports plug and play, which means that the operating system takes care of allocating system resources. The current maximum length of a USB cable can be about 5 metres, but it can be increased using a repeater cable.
While the Linux kernel contains a wide variety of device drivers, in some cases devices may not work right out of the box with Ubuntu and additional drivers need to be installed.
Wikipedia has more detailed information about the USB standard, covering:
- Version history, including upcoming versions
- Device classes
- Connectors, plugs and cables
- Power distribution
- Signaling
- Related and competing standards like Thunderbolt
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard [...] that defines the cables, connectors and communications protocols used in a bus for connection, communication, and power supply between computers and electronic devices. [...]
