[Joss]

Actually i'm trying to move onto linux time to time, and everytime it ends with a swearing, linux cds throws in a wall, cursing linux developers, and so on and so on.

Concerning fragmentation: you simply probably don't know that linux also has fragmentation I think it's possible to write fs driver that will try to keep fragmentation as low as possible, but it's complex, and it will anyway not guarantee 100% fragmentation free.
As an example you can look at this

"Now, I think it's fair to say that the ext2/ext3 inter-file
fragmentation issue is one of the three biggest performance problems in
Linux. (The other two being excessive latency in the page allocator due
to VM writeback and read latency in the I/O scheduler).
The fix for interfile fragmentation lies inside ext2/ext3, not inside
any generic layers of the kernel. And this really is a must-fix,
because the completion time for writeback is approximately proportional
to the size of the filesystem. So we're getting, what? Fifty percent
slower per year? "

Or maybe this:

Reiser4 is slightly (1.5x) faster than ext3 when reading ordered data. Ext3 degrades to around 60% of full speed after heavy fragmentation, reiser4 remains at 80%.
Reiser4 is almost twice as fast as ext3 during highly random read patterns. Both filesystems reduce to around 85% of full speed after heavy fragmentation.
Reiser4 repacker successfully restores read speeds to full speed, but only if run multiple times. If run a single time on heavily fragmented data, gains are barely visible.

It's a few first links google returned on "ext3 fragmentation" query.

Again: linux is simply superb as an experimental platform, very good for developing/testing new software as a platform where you can hack everything. Buuuuut.....it's not yet suitable for production, at least without some professional administration.

[John Layne]

Joss 99% agree, I have thrown the Red Hat and other Linux CD's in the bin a week after getting them.

But if you have some spare time, try Ubuntu desktop on an old machine. I set up an old laptop for my girlfriend, ironically to remotely operate/control a Windows XP machine using an RDP client. The desktop comes in 2 versions Unbuntu Desktop and kubuntu, kubuntu is for older PC's. Haven't yet tried Ubuntu Sever, maybe over Xmas.

Ubuntu solves all those dependency and update issues, for me at least.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

John Layne
Far from being a Linux geek, but still a geek.

[tikal26]

So going back to the original topic. I just found out that if you want widows Vista ultimate you need to buy it from scratch no upgrade is available
http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4740