To create a usb stick (flash drive) in Manjaro that can be used on Manjaro, Windows and macOS and doesn’t need root rights to be able to write files on it, use gParted.
1. In gParted unmount the drive’s partitions (if that’s possible and the option isn’t grayed out)
2. Delete the drive’s partitions
3. Apply the changes. (Apply all operations)
4. Create a new partition table of the type msdos. (Device > Create Partition Table)
5. Create a partition of the ext4 filesystem type.
6. Apply the changes. (Apply all operations)
7. In a terminal use the lsblk command to find out which drive your usb stick is. (for example /dev/sdx)
lsblk
8. Using the command line in a terminal - replace the ext4 filesystem with exFAT, which works on both Windows and Linux. This is needed, because gParted can’t always write exFAT filesystems, but it can write ext4 filesystems. However the latter only works on Linux, so we have to replace it with exFAT.
sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sdx1
9. Eject the flash drive using your file manager (Thunar). Then pull it out of the computer and reinsert it. If that doesn’t allow you to write files to the usb stick yet, then reboot your computer, because the Linux kernel might need a reboot to recognize the changes to the partition table and filesystem on the flash drive.
The same process can also be done purely from the command line. However the method using gParted is recommended over the method using the command line in this case, because the gParted method requires fewer reboots.
On the command line, the process is as follows:
Use the lsblk command to find out which drive your usb stick is. (for example /dev/sdx)
lsblk
Then start parted and tell it which drive you want to perform operations on:
sudo parted /dev/sdx
In parted interactive mode type:
mklabel msdos
Now reboot. And after the reboot do:
sudo parted /dev/sdx
And in parted interactive mode type:
mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%
When the partition is created, press q to exit parted.
Now that the flash drive contains a partition, create an exFAT filesystem on the newly created partition (replacing the ext4 filesystem that only works on Linux):
sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sdx1
When finished, reboot again.
That’s it, enjoy.
Note: You can also replace exFAT with fat32, ntfs or ext4, however the latter two might require you to run your file manager as root in order to write files to your usb stick (flash drive). For portability between different operating systems fat32 is the best option, however it only supports files up to 4GB, which is why exFAT is recommended.
Note: Depending on your type of Linux distribution you might need to install the exfat-utils package (or similar) to be able to use exFAT. On Manjaro this package is installed by default. Meaning that on Manjaro exFAT works out of the box. The exFAT filesystem also works out of the box on Windows and macOS.
