You don't actually need the whole lazy newb pack. There is only 1 additional thing required to play DF and 1 optional.
1). Dwarf Therapist. This one is required. It is essential. You must assign labours to your dwarves in order to be able to play, and the in-game way of doing it is incapable and insufficient.
2). DFHack. This tool is optional. Although it has many optional "cheat" commands and other plugins that enhance the gameplay (workflowy, for example), the biggest reason for having this tool are the multitude of bug fixes and tweaks that it can do for you. Although not essential, they make the game a bit less buggy.
And that's it! You don't need anything else! You don't need any graphics either. For someone new, it takes as much time to figure out what something is on the screen using graphics as it does using the bog standard "ASCII font". It is of course your choice, but so many new players are often misled by some people to believe that the game is unplayable without a graphics pack and that is simply not true.
Cool .. Wish there was a learning tutorial built into the game. I love the concept of the game and also looking forward to changes.
Although several versions out of date, these tutorials are still completely sufficient to learn to play the game. Give them a shot!
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31928.0