I've recently purchased a usb stick which I will be using to share data between me and my colleagues.
I'd like to format it as ext3, but I know this will cause trouble because for instance Mac OS X has troubles mounting that.
The problem is that any other FS I've used before (except for ext2 or ext4) seems to screw up the executable bit on files that have been on it.
E.g. I put up a normal non-executable pdf file on the stick, I take it off again and suddenly it's executable (e.i. the executable permission is enabled).
I don't like these kinds of trickeries. What filesystem should I use? Or is this problem not FS-related?
executable bit
is due to the fact that FAT does not support that sort of permissions which is very much a POSIX things. since UNIX system work on that sort of file permissions, when you mount a FS which doesn't support it, it will get emulated. indeed by default a VFAT file system mounted on linux will have all files and directory appear as 777, but it doesn't mean that there is an actual executable bit set on the FS. – ArTourter Apr 4 '12 at 22:40