> It's a 4GB stick and I am thinking of using all the space in a single
> partition.
Assuming the USB stick is at /dev/sdb I'd do:
% fdisk /dev/sdb
o
n RET RET RET RET
w
q
% mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1
This has always worked well for me, for Windows and Mac OS X.
[ IIUC using vfat for larger devices can occasionally lead to
incompatibilities, but for 4GB there's no such problem. ]
-- Stefan