Looking for a Linux

Linux distros that haven't yet been removed from the consideration process:

• Ubuntu: People everywhere just seem to love this distro. I think it might have drugs in it.
• Gentoo: I am intrigued by the Python-based ports management program, but I've been told that installing Gentoo means I'll be compiling everything on the machine for days and days.
• Slackware: I've tried Slackware before, and installing it is a little like trying to juggle bowling pins while riding a unicycle across a tightrope. Blindfolded. While doped up on sodium pentathol. And reciting old Abbott and Costello bits from memory. In Latin.
• Debian: I suspect Debian, with its flagship agt-get application, would be the distro of my dreams if I could ever just get it installed.
• Vector Linux: It's small. It's fast. And it's from Canada. But it also can't be installed over the network. I fault any Linux distro whose installation manual suggests you keep a Windows partition on your disk.

It appears as though Linux distributors love .ISOs and burning CDs. I can't fucking stand them. I'd rather keep a local mirror on FTP and install over the network from floppies. The BSDs work this way without trouble. So why is Linux such a stick in the mud? I don't have the patience to make a boot CD, and a few coasters along the way, for a distro that I'm going to hate after exactly twelve minutes of using it. CD-Rs may be cheap, but I still feel it's a waste of time, effort, and little plastic discs. I went through a brief period of time many years ago when I would burn any .ISO I could find to a disk, and I still have the pile of shame. It vaguely resembles Liza Minelli's mirror: it is a reflection of broken dreams.

Let's see: I believe the pile of shame includes: Elx CD1 and CD2, Simply GNUStep, Red Hat 9.0 CD1, CD2, CD3, and a second CD1 (I think I flubbed the first one but it still booted OK), BeOS Developer Edition, BeOS MAX v2.1, and, for some reason I can't rightly recall, Norton Systemworks 2003 or 2004.

I refuse to make this pile any larger. And if Vector Linux insists that I burn a new CD for their piece of shit operating system, then Vector Linux won't have a place on my shelf.

I never appreciate OpenBSD more than when I reinvestigate its competitors.