Ubuntu – How to execute a file from a FAT USB drive

executableusbusb-drive

I'm trying to install a portable app onto my USB drive such that it is compatible with both Ubuntu and Windows (specifically, a program called eToys). Support is already built into the app for both operating systems – there's etoys.sh for Ubuntu and etoys.exe for Windows. I decided to install onto a FAT drive since that can be read from both systems. This works fine for Windows, but for some reason I cannot execute etoys.sh on Ubuntu.

The problem is not with the file – when the whole folder is copied to the local hard drive, the app works great in Ubuntu. But when I try to execute it from the USB, it opens the file in a text editor.

I then tried to run it from a terminal, but I got the message Permission denied.

I've had the same problem with other executables as well.

Is there an easy way to execute things from a USB stick?

Best Answer

Because of limitations of the FA32 file system, you can't.

Now, you can cheat:

  1. either call sh etoys.sh instead of ./etoys.sh

  2. if you want, you can even create another script (that would lie on your hard drive, for example) that simply calls your script on the USB drive:

    #!/bin/bash
sh /media/USB/etoys.sh
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