When I want to use a USB drive between Linux, Mac and Windows, I need to select a partition type first. FAT32’s limitation is that the file size: only 4GB and below can be supported. So I looked for the alternative and the answer is exFAT.

Here is the instructions how to mount an exFAT partition on Ubuntu 10.04(from here, Mac and Windows support exFAT by default):

1
2
3
4
5

Add the repository: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:relan/exfat
Update the package list: sudo apt-get update
Install the exfat package: sudo apt-get install fuse-exfat
Create the mount folder: sudo mkdir /media/exfat
Mount the filesystem (replace sdc1 with your exfat partition): sudo mount -t exfat /dev/sdc1 /media/exfat

It seems that for Ubuntu later than version 11.10, exFAT is supported by default.

Updated on 2019-06-19:

Here are the instructions which I tested on Ubuntu 18.04(from here):

1
2
3

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt update
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

It seems formatting a USB drive to “exfat” format is still unavailable after installing the packages above.

1
2
3

> mkfs.
mkfs.bfs     mkfs.exfat   mkfs.ext3    mkfs.fat     mkfs.msdos   mkfs.vfat
mkfs.cramfs  mkfs.ext2    mkfs.ext4    mkfs.minix   mkfs.ntfs