I'm personally a big fan of gentoo linux for the linux boxes I run. I don't run any as desktop machines anymore, just as mail/development/backup servers, but I really like the flexibility and (maybe even moreso) the gentoo linux community is just awesome for helping with problems. When I'm just having linux problems, even those unrelated to gentoo/portage/etc, I still check out the gentoo forums, especially if google groups-searching turns up nothing.

I can understand the overhead in installing gentoo, though. It's kind of a pain, though it has gotten better with the livecds, though I haven't actually done a gentoo install for a couple of years. I ran it at work for a while, too, 'til the security folks made it unpleasant to run state-unsanctioned OS images. I used Mandrake and Red Hat for a couple of years before I took the gentoo plunge -- the best thing about gentoo isn't the obnoxious compile-everything-yourself-makes-things-faster dogma, but the simplicity of the OS setup makes everything pretty accessible and pretty easy to tweak. I definitely learned a lot more running Gentoo than running RH or Mandrake.

Aaaand this concludes this rambling blah blah shimmy-shimmy.