Cannot copy a link to an external device?

[John Bowden]

On Wednesday 23 January 2008 14:44:45 tchomby wrote:
> Quoting Ralf Doering <rdoering at netsys-it.de>:
> > What type of filesystem does your external device contain? If it
> > is
> > FAT/VFAT/FAT32 or NTFS, you simply can't store links on it,
> > because
> > these filesystems do not support symbolic like Linux (and hence
> > Ubuntu)
> > does.
>
> Aha. It is not my drive but a friends, but I think it is indeed one of
> those Windows filesystems.
>
> What filesystems do support symbolic links? Obviously, an external drive
> formatted with a linux filesystem would support it. But if that's not
> possible, then what about burning to a CD or DVD?
>
> I guess there is no way to copy links onto something like a USB thumb
> drive, because these are always FAT.
>
> What about floppy drives?
>
> Is there some other type of link or shortcut that can be made in Linux that
> is supported to Windows filesystems? Hard links? Can a set of symbolic
> links be easily converted into hard links?
>
> Thanks
>
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USB thumb drives generally come with FAT or NTFS file systems because it is 
assumed you will be plugging it into a windoz PC. When you plug one into a 
Linux box you have the choice of reformatting it with any one of the file 
systems recognised by Linux. If the thumb drive has to be used in a windoz 
machine as well as a Linux machine then create two partitions. Format one 
with a NTFS partition and the other partition with say EXT3, (though Linux 
can use more file systems than you can shake a stick at!) By using a NTFS you 
will also get round the 4Gb file size limit you would get with a FAT32 
partition, allowing you to copy DVD films.
If you copy the back ups to the EXT3 partition it should preserve the hard 
links
Regards John

-- 
Guy Fawkes, the only man to enter the house's of Parliament
with honest intentions, (he was going to blow them up!)
Registered Linux user number 414240