Even though I've ben using Slackware for some time, I can't claim to like it. It has taught me a lot, but there are days when this is a bad thing. I want stuff to Just Work.
Well, it gave it a shot as my distro, but it failed too. Primarily because I could not get X working right. I've worked on this before, and just can't get it higher than 800x600. This may seem like a small deal, but this is a classroom, and people expect a certain amount of usability from the machines.
So, on to BSD and Gentoo.