[Lvlug] Using a Linux filesystem (ext2, ext3) on a USB pendrive?

[Randy Kramer]

Is there any problem converting a USB pendrive to a Linux filesystem (other 
than incompatibility with Windows systems)?

My google research some months ago did not turn anything up, but my first 
attempt at conversion (that same "some months" ago) didn't work--the 
filesystem stayed an MS Dos system (fat16).  (And, iirc, the (unneeded) files 
that still happened to be on the pendrive stayed there, so clearly I did 
something wrong.)

I'm sure that was an ebkac--this time I'll review what I'm doing and probably 
start by using fdisk to delete the existing partition and create a new 
partition, then use (the right variation of) mkfs to create the filesystem.

My goal is to be able to use long filenames on the pendrive without having 
them shortened to things like "testfi~1.txt" or whatever--hmm, maybe fat32 
does that and preserves the Windows compatibility (in case I want to do 
something at a public library or similar)?

Any hints or warnings appreciated.

Randy Kramer