I have been around quite a bit. The best are Gentoo and Debian. However, Python being very much an essential component of your distro, not having Python2.4 as standard kind of eliminates Debian. Running two versions in parallel is not the way to go.
Gentoo requires quite a bit of work though. As I have to support several architectures, I looked around at Novell Suse and Ubuntu. Especially if you want flawless notebooks on linux, these two seemed best to me. I kind of discarded Ububtu because of the incompatibility between the compiler coming with the latest version and the kernel. You discover this quickly when trying to compile some kernel modules. Ubuntu is quite nice if your technical demands don't require much. If you're in python, you may one day run into some problem with addons. So Suse is what I use right now. Besides their YAST they now feature Synaptic. Overall, as nice as Ubuntu, somewhat easier with linux system work. I often wonder though whether I should not go back to Gentoo after all. More work, but you never seem to run into problems like with Suse or Ubuntu. Gentoo also has a very nice community always willing to help. Documentation is also very nice at Gentoo. Novell is kind of a mess. FWIW, that's my honest opinion. malv -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
