Workaround for Linux links on *FAT NTFS partitions

[stemsee]

I want to implement a system-wide intervention that basically redirects linux links to tmpfs and merges them during sfs creation. This will be useful for being able to perform a remaster on fat/ntfs systems, or possibly running full installs on fat/ntfs partitions, and also copying directories (which probably contain soft and hard links) to fat/ntfs partition that will be compressed into an sfs.

So we don't need to know why fat/ntfs filesystems don't do links, but for reference: "So FAT filesystems lack the fields required to store file attributes such as pathnames (in the case of special file symlinks) and link counters (used by hard links)."

Why are links used in the first place? To save space/prevent duplicated data. Without a link to a directory or file, that file or directory would need to exist in the place of the link.

Why don't developers just write software that points to the original destination in the first place? Developers as individuals are really nice people, but taken as a group they are a babbling bunch of incoherent idiots, who arbitrarily change things from day to day! At least in the linux world! Right??

Anyway the workaround I imagine in my ignorance, is a link translator or a mechanism that temporarily stores the link in /tmp or loads an aufs/union layer containing the links loaded from a filesystem sfs.

Any thoughts?

stemsee