newbie question: On installation of additional packages to Python

[Nasser Abbasi]

hello;

I have not used  Python before directly, but I am interested in trying it. 
I've read some good things about it. ( I am mainly interested in trying it 
for some scientific applications and simulation.)

I am running on windowz. I have downloaded and installed 2.5.1 Python.

my question is on installing additional packages.

What is the easiest way to do that?  I read about python 'eggs' (like jar 
files for Java), and easyInstall script, and such.

Is there some automated way to install Python packages? a manual/document I 
could read that describes step by step how to do that? Browsing the 
documentation, there does not seem to be something specific there (other 
than saying download this tar file and install it).

I like how one can install additional packages in 'R' . In 'R' one can do 
all that from the user interface for R by a pull-down menu, then one selects 
a mirror site, then one can see all the packages available, then select the 
package to download, and the rest is done automatically. (The package is 
downloaded, installed, etc...)

Anything like that exists for Python?  Btw, I have VM running on windowz, 
and so I can run Python on Ubuntu linux on that VM, would be easier to 
install additional Python packages there, may be using that nice GUI based 
Ubuntu package manager to do that?

thanks,
Nasser