On Mon, 2006-04-03 at 09:48 -0500, Jon Moss wrote:
Do you have any suggestions for a more user-friendly multimedia distro
that works well on a laptop?

Install Ubuntu Dapper Drake Flight 6's [http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/flight6] Gnome desktop and follow the instructions here for installing patented media codecs:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats

--
Jason D. Clinton <me@jasonclinton.com>