I appreciate much Vista's capabilities, but find it wanting is some areas. I bypassed XP and upgraded to Vista Home basic on a new PC (Dell e520), but find i cannot fax on Vista nor will my FTP programs work. And i prefer the simplicity (and up arrow) of 9x on navigation. So i installed Ubuntu feisty (relatively robust and mature) on a partition on a second HD, and recently installed PClinuxOS (faster, and better partitioner), as they both recognize my Sata drive on this Mobo. But while Linux is vastly more user friendly than before, and is overall improving, yet for many things (like even gaining ownership on many folders) one must learn or find DOS type commands. The help forums themselves, though they are a help, reveal that Linux has a ways to go if it will actually become a really contender for MS, which needs some Linux competition.
By that way, you can easily to mount and write to NTFS in Ubuntu feisty: drives
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/widows-ntfs-partitions-readwrite-support-made-easy-in-ubuntu-feisty.html 
