USB Human Interface Device (HID) transport
The transport layer that lets Linux talk to USB Human Interface Devices: keyboards, mice, joysticks, gamepads, drawing tablets, uninterruptible power supplies, and monitor controls. It also includes small "boot protocol" fallback drivers (usbkbd, usbmouse) for embedded systems that need a minimal keyboard or mouse without the full HID stack.
recommendation
It should stay because this is the code that makes essentially every USB keyboard, mouse, joystick, tablet, gamepad, UPS, and monitor-control device work on Linux. It is actively maintained, with patches landing as recently as April 2026 and being marked for stable, and the hardware class is still sold new by mainstream vendors like Logitech. There is no replacement; this is the standard path.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
Recent 2026 upstream patch traffic touched drivers/hid/usbhid/hid-core.c and was marked for stable, showing active maintenance rather than retirement.
- git.kernel.org
Kconfig describes USB_HID as the transport for USB keyboards, mice, joysticks, tablets, UPS and monitor-control devices; the optional usbkbd/usbmouse Boot Protocol drivers are niche and 'almost certainly not what you want' except embedded/simple cases.
- logitech.com
A mainstream USB wired keyboard remained on sale from a major vendor, indicating the covered hardware class is still sold new.
- logitech.com
A mainstream USB wired mouse remained on sale from a major vendor, indicating the covered hardware class is still sold new.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Real driver directory: hid-core.c uses module_init and usbkbd/usbmouse use module_usb_driver. lore_file_timeline and lore_activity on drivers/hid/usbhid/hid-core.c showed sustained 2021-2026 activity, including April 16 2026 fixes and refactors, so this is actively maintained. I did not get positive evidence of an upstream removal series from the fast lore probes; subject-regex searches timed out rather than finding removal talk. The kernel.org Kconfig URL is canonical recall; it shows USB_HID is the normal generic path and the Boot Protocol subdrivers are limited embedded/simple fallback options, so there is no single upstream replacement for the directory as a whole. Logitech product URLs were obtained by web search and support that USB keyboard/mouse deployments remain common in new systems. Overall: generic USB HID remains current and widely deployed, so keep.