upvoted for pacman. I actually have only tried arch at a friend's place, because for some anal reason Arch does not provide livecds. Only a command shell from where you must build your system up, which is quite a pain.
But I have only heard good things about pacman (and it's ultra simple package format). It enables Arch's rolling releases model, which means that you are always up2date without having to go from Beserking Baboon to Chittering Chimpanzee.
It is a much saner model for a stable, usable desktop system. If you can manage to combine this with a kernel update technology like ksplice, you have a super stable, updated Linux desktop without ever having to reboot (which makes the whole splash screen effort quite pointless actually)
As someone who has run Arch on their main PC for a year+, let me tell you it's not all roses. pacman may be simple, but it lacks many features you have come to expect; don't be surprised when everything on your system breaks when you pull in an updated library. Don't be surprised when pacman pulls in a new kernel without noticing, your machine fails to boot because it has nuked all of your old kernel modules.
While I agree that the rolling release model is attractive, it requires a much more robust package management system to be practical for people who do not live on the bleeding edge 24/7.
You should really try Arch. I was initially hesitant, because of the whole 'Build you own Linux!' thing, but after doing it once I learned LOTS and realized that it was not near as difficult as it sounds.
There is excellent documentation in the Arch wiki, and the forums are helpful. And I have to say, installing arch linux taught me more about linux than anything else that I have ever done.
But I have only heard good things about pacman (and it's ultra simple package format). It enables Arch's rolling releases model, which means that you are always up2date without having to go from Beserking Baboon to Chittering Chimpanzee.
It is a much saner model for a stable, usable desktop system. If you can manage to combine this with a kernel update technology like ksplice, you have a super stable, updated Linux desktop without ever having to reboot (which makes the whole splash screen effort quite pointless actually)