which lunix distro?

I've used Slackware since 1994 but I'm looking for something that isn't such a pain in the ass.  I've learned everything I need to learn from Slackware's pain-in-the-assness, so I want to take it easy and use a more user-friendly distribution.

Is Ubuntu any good?  Fedora?  What about Mandrake?  Gentoo?

You can disregard pretty much anything that has been said yet, except the Kubuntu part. Kubuntu is for 2 sorts of people, people who don't know shit about linux (yet), or people of any skill/knowledge who like it simple and don't want to waste much time maintaining their system.

If you do not mind wasting hours and hours every month with your system, and you don't mind compiling for hours, gentoo is the way. Gentoo may be the best home-use linux system there is, but it's a piece of work. If you don't like the work, kubuntu will do, since its simple to use & maintain, but also extendable enough for a professional to use.


Or, what just comes to my mind, are you talking about a dedicated machine and not your home bitch? :p
If so, there are pretty much 3 smart choices, debian, redhat and fbsd.