because I can't set up a simple config file or bother to google how to set up config file.
While Ubuntu was installed and running on the laptop well within an hour, the extended time trawling through forum posts and help pages to try and figure out things like to generate the xorg.conf file, the X server needs to be stopped or the X server runs in the service called 'gdm' or sudo is your friend, once you know about Ubuntu 9.10* meant that the net time investment on the WinXP setup (including driver downloads) was lower.
Your comment ignores the fact that with a similar time investment, WinXP achieved the desired result (and I knew that it would); Ubuntu did not achieve the desired result (and when I gave up, I still didn't know whether it could).
* It takes a while to discover that the password entered during setup isn't the root password, and in fact, that Ubuntu 9.10 does not have a user-set root password after installation. Might be obvious to others, but to the Ubuntu 9.10 newbie, it was baffling...