Which distro to choose?

I am a Linux fan.

I actively use Linux all the time, except for gaming. I've been switching back and forth between Ubuntu and its KDE flavor, Kubuntu. I've decided I prefer KDE, but I've always found that Ubuntu (the gnome variant) seems more... supported, or something. I'm not sure what it is, but it seems like Kubuntu is more of an afterthought than anything else. One thing that's always bothered me is how hard it is to apply themes - it's a snap with Ubuntu. I'm not sure if that's KDE's fault, or Kubuntu's, though.

But I don't want to give up my KDE. So after doing some research (more simply poking around than research), I decided to try openSUSE.

At first glance, I liked it. But once I started installing my enthusiasm dwindled a bit. The reason?

One word: license agreement.

Not once since I left the world of Windows have I seen a license agreement. But I guess openSUSE is more corporate than Ubuntu?

So I clicked Accept. I didn't really like the install process - somehow it made me feel... confused. I shrugged this off as it simply being a side-effect of changing distros.

After the installation, I explored, and set about customizing. Almost immediately I noticed that my Windows partition wasn't mounted, didn't even show. Running fdisk -l in the Konsole (after some struggle - I'm used to the Debian-based command system) revealed it was still alive and kicking, though.

I ran a Google search and eventually managed to get it mounted (albeit manually). So that's two points for Kubuntu, in that there's no license agreement at install and it automatically mounts my Windows partition. So far SUSE only earned a point for looking sexy and including the kickoff menu and kcontrol by default (Kubuntu doesn't).

After fussing with Yast (package manager), I was getting annoyed. To me, Kubuntu's Adept was so much faster. It would install a selected package right away (after I confirmed I wanted to). Yast, every time, insisted on installing a bunch of other stuff as well. I still haven't figured out what that stuff was, though.

So I had my desktop customized with a new wallpaper and screensaver. But the time had come to see if theming actually /worked/. I had been told it would, but...

I tried out deKorator, which is what I installed via Yast. Just like in Kubuntu, it didn't work.

By this time I was fed up. I immediately uninstalled SUSE, and reinstalled Kubuntu. I realize now I probably should have gave it more time, but the distro oddly reminded me of Vista - shiny on the outside, and clunky on the inside.

I think the reason for this is that Ubuntu is heavily community-driven. The forum's members are very helpful and friendly. In the distro, I sense a strong community presence, but in SUSE, it's mainly corporately developed.

I've decided to install it on my external drive and give it another try (possibly). But I'd also like to find a distro that I can really like. For me, the best I've ever used was Linux Mint. It's based on Ubuntu, has MP3 support and flash installed by default, and is overall easy to use. I almost never had to touch the command line. But I wanted KDE, so I switched back to Kubuntu.

Ultimately, what I want is a distro that is complete and works as well as Ubuntu, but has all the KDE features that SUSE actually utilizes (and good theming support). I'm not sure when I'll find that. But for now, I guess I'm still distro-hopping. :)