It is funny, I was at the LWE in NYC this year, when I overheard a guy make this statement... it is so true, the evolutionary scale of a Linux user if you will:

"Everyone should start out with RedHat or maybe Caldera, they are simple and for the most part harmless and they are enough to at least get the new user over fear of *Linux* -- then, next stop should be Slackware, it is like that old piece of shit car you had as a teenager, you spend most of your time working on it and your friends all laugh at you for owning it, but you learn a lot about keeping a system going (the hard way) and later on down the road, you'll be glad you picked up what you did -- next stop is SuSE, this is Linux refined, powerful and loaded with applications, now you are starting to realize all you can do with Linux. But you will have miss the ability to get under the hood like you used to and fine tune things the way *you* like'em -- Now, time to step up, Debian GNU/Linux, you have made it, Linux perfection!"

I guess one needs to add a fork in the road somewhere for those who end up with Mandrake?

Debian == Work | Play == Mandrake