I didn't like Ubuntu.
Yoper is quite nice, but with a limited package base.
So far the best distro I have used is
Arch Linux which is i686 optimized, has a large and very up-to-date package base, a superb package manager named pacman, simplicity and stability at the extreme. Next best thing to Gentoo, but here you don't have to wait for hours and wathcing gcc compiling source...
On the other hand you DO need to know about Linux to get thru that one, as all settings are done the good old manual way (there isn't even an acceptable webmin adaptation available for that one).