[thirteenfingers]

Over the years I've gone from Ubuntu to Debian to Slackware and back to Debian. I took a chance on Slackware for a few years precisely so that I could force myself to understand *nix from the bottom up. Unfortunately I didn't have nearly as much free time (or patience) as I needed to get the most out of the experience, and having to deal with missing dependencies turned out to be too much overhead for just getting anything else done. I'd definitely recommend it for folks who enjoy (and have the time for) getting their hands dirty.