Disk defragmenter in Linux

[Robert Nichols]

Jeff Vian wrote:
> It would surprise me if rpm did not know that and be able to reserve
> space for the file to be placed as soon as each file begins to be
> extracted. Especially since rpm (some versions at least) does a check of
> the file it extracts to verify it is intact.

There is no mechanism for requesting that space be reserved for a file.
The ext2/ext3 file system code does pre-allocate some number of blocks
when new space is needed to accommodate a write(), and that reduces the
liklihood of tiny fragments.  Beyond that, there is simply no way to
do what you suggest.

-- 
Bob Nichols         Yes, "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.