Hi,

when I copy a symlink (e.g. per drag-and-drop) to an external medium, chances are high that I actually meant to copy the symlink target file instead, Example:

$ echo "important file" > a
$ ln -s a b
$ cat b
.oO(Ah, this is the file I want!)

Now I plug in my (FAT-formatted) USB stick, open it in nautilus and drag the "b" file over into its window. An error message appears, telling me that the file system does not support symbolic links. WTF? I can see the file, I can open it, modify its content and save it but I cannot copy it to my USB stick for *what* reason?

I hope you see the point. Even if the target file system on my USB stick supported symbolic links, it is very unlikely that I want to carry a dead symlink around on it. So please, offer to copy both the symlink and the link target on file systems that support it or offer to copy the symlink target under the symlink's file name on file systems that do not support symlinks.

Cheers,
Fabian