At least, I think that's the problem. I have a file called "pkg::create.n" and I need to back it up. But neither the commandline (I tried using cp, mv, touch, even creating a hard link) nor Thunar file manager will let me create a file with that name. I can create one called "pkg:create.n", but it's not a solution.

Using Xubuntu 9.04, BTW.

I was just able to create a file with this name and then successfully copied it. You'll need to put quotation marks around it to do so. Like this...

On my CentOS 5 box I was able to create the file with that name with a simple touch command.

I can't see any reason that it shouldn't work on any Linux distro.

Not sure what Thunar is - it may have an issue with using : in names.

However, I would NOT actually want files with : in the name because : is used as a separator for many PATH style variables and within many configuration files as a delimiter. If for example you made a directory with that name you'd never be able to add it to your PATH or use it for a user's home directory because the : would confuse things.

Oh, I found the problem. See, I'm running Linux inside a virtual machine, which has a shared folder with its Windows XP host. It's Windows who doesn't accept the :: in the name. Thanks anyway.

And Thunar is Xfce's (or at least Xubuntu's) file manager.