Somebody ought to be watching over your shoulder to figure out just what the heck you're doing. Have you tried RT*M and then not trying to second-guess it? And it ain't the only crap I've eaten either - Slackware was good too.
I've installed on four custom systems and when I ran into problems, I read all the "linux-isn't-supported" docs to get the info - you know, /usr/doc/HOWTO, mailing lists, usenet... I've always been impressed with how much info there is. Maybe I'm not on the bleeding edge like you, but the answers we're all there.

Good luck on your next distro you try. BTW, I did a RedHat Linux 5.2 complete install out of the box, running 62 days non-stop as server in the midst of Win98 LAN. I'm impressed by RedHat.