Lets examine the popular non-Ubuntu choices that I'm aware of:
SUSE/RHEL/CentOS/Oracle Linux/SciLinux?
All RPM based, and while there's nothing wrong with that, and YUM works fine, I already know apt-get and dpkg, why should I switch?
Gentoo?
Again, no apt-get. (And no, I don't care if there's a compatibility layer.)
Debian?
Wake me up when I can get the latest nvidia driver anywhere in its ecosystem. Meanwhile there's a PPA for Nvidia-$latest that works with my optimus laptop.
Additionally, call it do-release-upgrade, call it apt-get dist-upgrade, call it aptitude full-upgrade. It needs to not cause my system to die in fun and exciting ways. Which it did, going from Squeeze to Wheezy on my server.
Mint?
I have yet to be convinced this isn't Ubuntu reimplemented poorly, with less resources, and less attention. How many 3rd party PPAs are there vs Ubuntu? Since I'm digging into using PPAs for bleeding edge releases, why shouldn't I just use Ubuntu?
Linux on the desktop is Ubuntu for me. I threw Openbox on there and I'm good to go with minimal hassle.
If you're passing off Gentoo based on the presence of 'apt-get', you might be failing to understand the point of Gentoo =)
Gentoo uses something called 'portage' -- It's for building everything from source. This gets us access to really bleeding stuff very quickly, while leaving the lid open on an absurd amount of code out there.
This helps me write libraries for the entire Windows and Linux ecosystem. If I can prove that I can support my new binary's ABI there, I've proven that it can survive anywhere.
But if you're looking for apt, you should probably consider any of the binary-based distributions. Gentoo is not for the faint of heart, but if you want to learn Linux and development, it will benefit you like non other.
Debian has apt -- and while its release cycle is a little longer, I've found it to be more stable for mission-critical "apt"/binary-based hosting. In my experience I've found they screw up the packages a little less -- look to how many patches Ubuntu maintains on PHP for a comparison on how dangerous Ubuntu will sometimes play!
SUSE/RHEL/CentOS/Oracle Linux/SciLinux? All RPM based, and while there's nothing wrong with that, and YUM works fine, I already know apt-get and dpkg, why should I switch?
Gentoo? Again, no apt-get. (And no, I don't care if there's a compatibility layer.)
Debian? Wake me up when I can get the latest nvidia driver anywhere in its ecosystem. Meanwhile there's a PPA for Nvidia-$latest that works with my optimus laptop.
Additionally, call it do-release-upgrade, call it apt-get dist-upgrade, call it aptitude full-upgrade. It needs to not cause my system to die in fun and exciting ways. Which it did, going from Squeeze to Wheezy on my server.
Mint? I have yet to be convinced this isn't Ubuntu reimplemented poorly, with less resources, and less attention. How many 3rd party PPAs are there vs Ubuntu? Since I'm digging into using PPAs for bleeding edge releases, why shouldn't I just use Ubuntu?
Linux on the desktop is Ubuntu for me. I threw Openbox on there and I'm good to go with minimal hassle.