Ubuntu – Create symbolic link on a USB stick drive

directorysymbolic-linkusb

I want to create a symbolic link of a file, such that both the source file and its symbolic link are inside my USB stick drive. I have tried two method as follows:

1- Right click and then "Make Link". The result is an error that says:

The target doesn't support symbolic links.

2- In the terminal, I use:

ln -s "USB_DIRECTORY/test.txt" "USB_DIRECTORY/testLink.txt"

The result is the following error:

Operation not permitted

Is there a way to create symbolic links in a USB stick drive?

Best Answer

FAT32, unlike NTFS, does not support symlinks, as per https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/blog/the-dsc-472367/not-even-linux-can-create-symlinks-on-fat32-36281/ and https://superuser.com/questions/216332/is-there-anything-like-a-link-or-shared-mount-point-for-fat32-folders-in-linux-a

Therefore, if you want symlinks on a Windows-readable drive, use NTFS.

Mac OS X requires additional work to enable writing to a USB flash drive as per http://osxdaily.com/2013/10/02/enable-ntfs-write-support-mac-os-x/ and https://techsviewer.com/write-ntfs-drives-macos-high-sierra/ but is able to read NTFS natively.

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