Just a quick note, I've recently moved from Gentoo to Ubuntu on my desktop machine at home. I had a few problems with my Gentoo install and while I find Gentoo great for learning the ins and outs of things, as I do more and more freelance work, I need a OS environment that's not going to let me down. My point being environment, Gentoo is more than capable of being extremely stable, but it takes a lot more knowledge to get it and keep it stable. Whilst I was happy learning and taking my time before, things need to happen a little more urgently now.
I chose Ubuntu mainly because I run Debian on my dedicated servers and am already familiar with the package management, but also because I wanted to see what the fuss is a bout. I'm very pleased so far. I'm running Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, GNUCash, OpenOffice.org, Amarok and KTorrent day to day, the latter two despite using GNOME for my desktop.