Best (and worst)( distros for software development

[Tim Chase]

> I don't even know how to get gentoo to install properly so it talks 

Thus my recommendation that you use whatever (non-tiny) distro that
meets your needs (whether Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, vinux, etc)
*first*, as they're all about the same.  You might get slightly
newer libraries on one vs. the other, but for the most part the
differences should be insignificant.

-tim