diff --git a/pkgs/by-name/hw/hwinfo/package.nix b/pkgs/by-name/hw/hwinfo/package.nix
index 646c246e4cc4..a034bf9b3773 100644
--- a/pkgs/by-name/hw/hwinfo/package.nix
+++ b/pkgs/by-name/hw/hwinfo/package.nix
@@ -14,6 +14,8 @@
   runCommand,
   validatePkgConfig,
   gitUpdater,
+  buildPackages,
+  perlPackages,
 }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
@@ -30,17 +32,21 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
   nativeBuildInputs = [
     flex
     validatePkgConfig
+    perl
+    perlPackages.XMLWriter
+    perlPackages.XMLParser
   ];
+  depsBuildBuild = [ buildPackages.stdenv.cc ];
 
   buildInputs = [
     libuuid
     libx86emu
-    perl
   ];
 
   postPatch = ''
     # used by the build system
     echo ${finalAttrs.version} > VERSION
+
     # Replace /usr paths with Nix store paths
     substituteInPlace Makefile \
       --replace-fail "/sbin" "/bin" \
@@ -58,12 +64,26 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
       --replace-fail "/sbin/rmmod" "${kmod}/bin/rmmod" \
       --replace-fail "/usr/bin/udevinfo" "${systemdMinimal}/bin/udevinfo" \
       --replace-fail "/usr/bin/udevadm" "${systemdMinimal}/bin/udevadm"
+
   '';
 
-  makeFlags = [
-    "LIBDIR=/lib"
-  ];
+  # The pci/usb ids in hwinfo are ancient. We can get a more up-to-date list simply by copying from systemd
+  preBuild = ''
+    # since we don't have .git, we cannot run this.
+    rm git2log
+    pushd src/ids
+    cp ${systemdMinimal.src}/hwdb.d/pci.ids src/pci
+    cp ${systemdMinimal.src}/hwdb.d/usb.ids src/usb
+    # taken from https://github.com/openSUSE/hwinfo/blob/c87f449f1d4882c71b0a1e6dc80638224a5baeed/src/ids/update_pci_usb
+    perl -pi -e 'undef $_ if /^C\s/..1' src/usb
+    perl ./convert_hd src/pci
+    perl ./convert_hd src/usb
 
+    make check_hd CC=$CC_FOR_BUILD
+    popd
+  '';
+
+  makeFlags = [ "LIBDIR=/lib" ];
   installFlags = [ "DESTDIR=$(out)" ];
 
   passthru = {