I tried a lot of distros before, Ubuntu, Fedora, DSL, Puppy, Sugar, Mint, and my favourite is Fedora 11.

Ubuntu is too... erm... flashy? Although the CLI is still there and all, I don't like the way its marketed, like it's a "dumbed down linux for everyone" kind of thing.

DSL is awesome, just burn or make it bootable on a small flash drive (fits on a 64MB!) and its an awesome recovery tool.

Sugar is experimental, actually for the OLPC program. Very interesting though.