you don't need to twiddle nearly as much as someone like me actually does.

Frexample, you don't need to build your own kernel; you don't need to run snapshots of GNOME 2.0 CVS; you don't need the latest version of XMMS, etc etc etc.

If you stay within the boundaries of your distribution, and keep up with updates that are *essential* (like security updates), then you'll have a box that just runs and runs.

Of course, it will be somewhat less fun than mine, but hey :)