Welcome to Unbuntu! I run it also on my laptop and get nearly an additional hour of battery life over xp pro. I don't think youre going to get itunes running to your satisfaction, try tinkering with playlists on xmms or something.

Linux distros are working toward being a desktop OS, look at how far they've come in the last few years. Even the 1 laptop per child initiative is running linux. While i love linux for my personal usage i will admit its got a little way to go to make it completely user friendly. I wish more hardware companies would back linux as far as making more hardware drivers included, this single handedly would help more than anything. It is aggravating to have to recompile your kernel just to get your wireless working.