[linux-audio-user] Distros these days? What a mess!

Gaaah! I haven't had to install a new linux in ages, and now am faced with doing so. Is it just me, or is the state of linux pro audio on the major distros a total mess right now? Fedora core 5 seems to require MUCH tweaking to get any audio working and has a lot of alsa weirdness preventing serious work, Ubuntu just plain doesn't work with numerous cards ( including mine! ) and gentoo took a giant step backwards by rushing a broken and not ready 2006.1 installer out the door negating all the advantages they used to have. Am I the only one who feels like getting pro audio working these days is *harder* than two years ago??? It seems to me that in the race to make a distro that has everything working out of the box, we now have a bunch of things that are really screwed up for those of us with unusual needs, and now they are much harder to untangle. =( Any recos for a distro that must: - be decent for development - allow easy integration of from source apps with the distro - be realtively straightforward for audio kernel recompiles Thanks Iain