Well, several days ago i was migrating my Open SuSE 10.3 into Slackware 12.0. This is the best Linux distribution if you want to get a distro "as Vanilla as it can be".
In Slackware, you get your Linux with vanilla source from open source developers, including the kernel. That's make you easy if fyou want to add patch or add-ons to your kernel or distro according to your necessity .
I also upgraded my kernel to 2.6.24.2 from the original 2.6.21 inside this distro and add Gnome Dropline. And now i use Gnome 2.20 as my desktop at home.
With compositing desktop from compiz-fusion, here are the results of my current desktop [ with youtube video] :