Well, shipping codecs means they have to pay royalties, os'es like Windows and OSX bake that cost into their asking price, Ubuntu is free. Also the codes are likely only an apt-get away.
Don't know about the fonts as I don't run Ubuntu.
As for NVidia/ATI drivers, back when I was on Windows (many years ago) you pretty much had to install the drivers directly from the vendors in order to get decent performance as the ones shipped were awful and generally old, is that no the case anymore? Still, getting these driver are also just one apt-get away unless I'm mistaken?
Don't know about the fonts as I don't run Ubuntu.
As for NVidia/ATI drivers, back when I was on Windows (many years ago) you pretty much had to install the drivers directly from the vendors in order to get decent performance as the ones shipped were awful and generally old, is that no the case anymore? Still, getting these driver are also just one apt-get away unless I'm mistaken?