[kwlug-disc] Flash drive filesystem for Linux AND Windows

[Chris Irwin]

On Mon, Jun 28, 2021 at 12:19:39PM -0400, Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc wrote:
>I have to transfer some files via USB from Linux to Windows. One
>option is to use FAT32. Is there something better I can use?

I typically try not to use usb, but when I have to, I just use FAT32.

With all it's caveats and limitations, it is pretty widely supported 
with the least fuss. You will lose metadata -- not just permissions, but 
file timestamp resolutions are different and may be altered.

Previously, I experimented with UDF, but there's version compatability 
concerns there (You'll want to stick to UDF2.0x for the widest current 
compatability). It worked, but I gave up because I didn't want to have 
to think about the extra steps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Disk_Format

>I guess the Linux->Windows transfers will probably be okay (except for
>dotfiles?), but going the other way is not so nice.

Windows -> Linux is effectively problem-free. I don't think I've ever 
had an issue here, and I can't think of any file name restrictions that 
would cause problems.

Linux -> Windows, there's all sorts of quriky issues you might 
encounter. Fat32 being case insensitive (but case preserving) could be 
an issue if you had conflicting files (ex: Document.txt and 
document.txt). That's mostly not something we do anyway, though.

One issue I have experienced was files with colons in the name (ex: 
"FooBar: Summary.odf").

And the classics, like don't have a file named LPT1...

https://help.interfaceware.com/v6/windows-reserved-file-names

-- 
Chris Irwin

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