Project PDA

The Linux hotplug subsystem enables you to plug in a device and have it immediately ready to use. It is similar in function to the card manager from PCMCIA card services, except it is generalized to include USB, Firewire (IEEE 1394), and network devices. The 2.6 series of Linux kernels adds hot- plug capability to even more subsystems, such as SCSI and input devices.

When hotplug detects a new device, it loads the necessary driver modules into the kernel, and it runs any scripts the user has configured. In the case of BlueZ, hotplug is required for certain Bluetooth devices that require firm- ware downloaded to them, such as the USB dongles based on the Broadcom chipset.

Hotplug ships with most Linux distributions. Version 2002_08_26 or later is required.