What distro would be right for me? (Based on some needs and wants.)
 

I want some suggestions for a distro to use.

The number one requirement is that it must not use PulseAudio, and ideally not be likely to any time soon. On Ubuntu Karmic it's just screwed up my sound, and I think it's way overengineered. I don't need per-app volume controls or network streaming audio, I need reliable sound playback. Plain ALSA gives me that.

It also needs to run well on my hardware. Dual Pentium III 866 MHz, 512 MB RAM, nVidia GeForce 6200. I don't normally have any performance problems running 'full' distros, but extreme eye-candy is out.

Besides that, the following are preferable:

* Regular release cycle, at least annually. Up-to-date software versions.
* Upgradable easily.
* Good sized repository. I admit little beats Ubuntu, but I'm after a lot more than say Puppy.
* Something that puts me in control. I want to be able to configure things and not have them unexpectedly overridden.
* Have Gnome. Doesn't need to be the default, just at least option.
* Be free as in beer.
* Strong ecosystem. I don't want something that's not going to be active in 12 months.
* Have a lightweight version for my other computer (an old laptop).

A couple I'm thinking about at the moment. Slackware. I know I'd be in control, but I'm worried it may be a bit conservative on software versions, and Gnome isn't in the official repos.

Vector's another. I'm using the light version on my laptop and it's very good. But again, reservations about the lack of Gnome.

What do people think?

Debian

Archlinux...rolling-release distro and very light

Why not just stick with Ubuntu and remove Pulseaudio?

I'd go with this, too.

New releases don't come out annually, but Testing and Unstable are rolling updates, and Testing really isn't that unstable. Unstable is.

Aside from that, it matches all your other wants.

I tried that. But it doesn't work all that well. For one, there's then no gnome volume control in the system tray, I had to use KMix. For two, it ended up put back when I did updates. I guess Karmic is still a beta, so maybe it won't happen when it's in full release - but I still don't trust it. Besides, I've other minor gripes with Ubuntu. I just generally feel the distro's gone down since...Hardy, maybe Intrepid. I'm just not happy with Ubuntu any more.

I've gone with Arch. So far I'm liking it. The install and configuration obviously required some effort, but wasn't hard for myself. Using LXDE at the moment, but Gnome's there if I decide I want it. And my sound is flawless :-)