[Sussex] New linux user

[Liam Derwin]

Hi

I want to make the switch to linux, but I'm a user rather than a sys admin,
so I'm looking for a distro that has an installation process that vaguely
resembles win98 (i.e. check boxes for the things you want installed).

I'm looking for the following to be included in the install...

Firefox
An email client that has an outlook express feel to it, or thunderbird
Open office
A chat client other than kopete, that can do icq, aim, msn and yahoo.  If
there's one that can also handle xfire I don't mind how complicated the
install process is, I'll learn ;-)
A media player that plays dvd without any additional tweaking
An IRC client
An ftp client
Networking with a windoze pc

Additionally, these would be nice (but non-essential features)

Sync with an ipaq running I have no idea what version of wince
MIDI software (I currently use cakewalk on windows)

I've currently got xandros running on my laptop, but xine won't play dvd, I
can't see an ftp client, and the networking only goes one way (I can read /
write from linux to windows, but not the other way round).

I get confused when it comes to all the compiling etc.  I'm quite happy to
use linux, but I'm looking for the equivalent of a .exe file when I install
a package.  I don't mind learning more complex ways of doing things, but I
like my learning in bite sized chunks.  Ultimately I'm looking to switch to
linux on my desktop and install cedega, after I make sure it's able to
handle all the games I play.

Any advice you guys can give on a suitable distro would be much appreciated.

TIA
Liam