Yes, Mandrake aquired Connectiva and is now called Mandriva... Strange name depending on how you read it...
Personally I've tried Fedora, Mandrake, Simply Mepis, VidaLinux, Knoppix and Ubuntu.
Knoppix is a good rescue disk.
Mandrake was pretty good, but the recent commercial aspects didn't feel right, I also found it a little unstable at times.
Fedora was pretty much the same, and at the time the package managment and repo synchronization was not so good.
Simply Mepis I liked, and it is still on my computer at work, but I'll be replacing it with Ubuntu when I get a chance. Some of the interface things where a little off.
VidaLinux didn't last long... As a gentoo system adding software means compiling it first, which means it takes a very long time, even if the result is a fast system.
Suse has apparently crippled Media playback pretty badly in the latest, but Novell behind it gives it a strong base to stand on.
But right now, Ubuntu takes the win. The documentation is excellent, the Debian base gives a huge software selection easily available. And Canonical's business ethics can't be matched.