Which Linux distro

["David Lodge" <dave cirt net>]

As I stated in another email, with the arrival of my kicking bottom new  
games machine, I don't really have a reason to run 2 Windows boxen anymore.

So I want to retire my old and knackered SuSE 9.1 box (the hardware is  
about 5 years old and can be used to keep my coffee warm) and rebuild my  
current desktop to some flavour of Linux.

Have any of you guys got opinions on the current distros? I want to use it  
for a variety of things; including translations, mucking around with Gnome  
2.14 and the odd development of Gnome apps.

The essentials:
1) Easy package management (a yum alike would be fine)
2) Minimal dependency hell
3) Wireless support (I don't want to have to compile the drivers every  
time I upgrade the kernel)
4) Sensible file system format (Gnome is not part of the OS and belongs in  
/opt not /usr godsdammit!)
5) No crap packages (e.g. isdn, ppp ad nauseam)

I've got a lot of experience with Fedora, but it fails 4 of the 5 tests.  
I've tried Ubuntu, but it has in built package dependency hell. I'm an old  
SuSE user but really hate YaST and I haven't tried it since Novell bought  
the company?

Recommendations?

Ta

dave