Distro choice

So with my new home Linux box, I was only strongly considering two distros. Gentoo and Ubuntu which from what I understand are at the opposite ends of the user spectrum; Gentoo being geared more towards the hands-on and Ubuntu more towards the commoner.

I wanted Gentoo because

• I haven't managed my own box in some 8 years and was therefore very rusty with Linux innards. Quite a bit has changed/advanced. I wanted to get back into it.
• I like the philosophy of Gentoo. I like the idea of optimizing performance for my machine.
  
• Someday my office workstation is supposed to use Gentoo.
• It has a strong following.

But

• I know it's more time consuming in getting things setup.
• It would take me quite a bit of digging to learn the ins and outs and details.
• I just have too many other projects as it is.

Ubuntu was the other option, the fallback options. I was interested because

• I read a lot of press on it. It seems to be the most popular new distro around.
• It was easy to set up and use.
• One of the IT guys tried it out and said it just works pretty cleanly out of the box. Very simple to set up. Sound works, CD works, etc. etc.
• Seems like the low-maintenance solution

But

• The feel-good global-tribe theme I find kind of creepy. The naming convention too.
• No root? Everything is sudo. Now that's odd. Interesting.
• Having been using Debian for the past many years I've grown disenchanted by it and things based on .deb packages. Same with .rpms and the Red Hat line.

Turns out Gentoo failed to install on the first couple attempts but Ubuntu started up almost perfectly. And there-in lies the deciding factor. I was just not willing to do too much tinkering to get things working and at 4-5am decided I would stick with what worked. I could always switch later. Or maybe I should just face facts that I've become a commoner.