All Linux distros can read NTFS out of the box ...
Its currently dropped the ball on completely transparent
support for FAT32 and NTFS partitions.
FAT32 support is completely transparent ...
Its not as if its actually difficult to do either, knoppix does that
fine, tho its support for write access to NTFS partitions is pathetic.
.... but NTFS *write* access has never been implemented, because M$ will
not release the structural details. It all had to be
reverse-engineered, and writing to NTFS is still unsafe.
Thats essential when so many XP systems have nothing but NTFS.
That's fine, you can read all your NTFS data, and write your new stuff
to your new Linux partition. That's why you're testing Linux, right?
BUT thats useless for many who need a decent dual
boot at least, because linux will never be able to be
all things to everyone with personal desktop systems.
It is no less likely to become "all things to everyone" than Windows.
Rather more likely, in fact, because it embraces what people actually
want rather than what M$ tells them they want.
Unless of course you were referring to M$'s monopolistic practices of,
what's it called, embrace extend extinguish - undermining open
standards and locking users into proprietary ones instead. That may
well succeed in preventing Linux becoming "all things to everyone" -
it's the only way they'll win.
And even when a particular user has decided that linux has
arrived and has decided that they wont be wanting to use
XP again, it still hasnt arrived until its got a decent bulletproof
system for converting the file system if it doesnt have completely
bulletproof NTFS support. Hardly any of the level of user that
ubuntu is aimed at will be able to or even want to do that
file system conversion manually via DVDs.
Reading files across from an NTFS partition to a Linux one is not too
hard. Once copied, you just nuke the NTFS and lo, you've switched to
Linux.
CC