If you want to get mp3 and video codecs quickly and easily, use Easy Ubuntu. That really is simple enough for Grandma! Some versions of Windows XP now comes without Media Player as standard, so I guess those people have to search on the internet for both a media player and codecs. For people without a clue, the Ubuntu package manager should be a lot easier than telling people "Go to www.google.com, type "VLC media player" in the search bar, go to the first website on the list, then to the download page, download it, double-click on the .exe file you've just downloaded..." Ubuntu is slightly different, and therefore I agree it's not as useful for people who have already gotten used to the silly way XP does things (ie: rely on people using a third-party search engine to find updates to critical third-party system applications). However, using this approach, everything is in the same place. It's more intuitive and it's much easier to update everything. Have you ever tried installing XP on a system it did not come pre-installed on? Driver issues are often rampant- on an old laptop I booted into XP and the display was in 2 colours- the display drivers were long discontinued and unavailable anywhere. It kept blue-screening too. Ubuntu came along and my only trouble was the wireless network card.