yea its slow when running on CD but its usable... you can get all the codecs on the ubuntu forums the easiest way is to download easy ubuntu .... you can install these onto a thumb drive while using the CD

when you add and remove programs it gets the applications from the net for you and then installs them.

It is mac like as both are unix type operating systems... you can get many different desktops Ubuntu uses the Gnome desktop while its sister Kubuntu uses the KDE desktop which is more windows like.

Even if you do not decide to use it its worth keeping hold of the disk because if windows ever stops working you can get your data off using that disk