I've decided to go back to linux again. I was wondering what you guys think the best distro would be. Last time i installed Fedora4. I just want a distro with a better shell than windows. Transparancy, shadowing, a good amount of apps, easily customizable desktop, ect.

I was thinking Gentoo but i'll see what you guys have to say :P

Any Unix has a better shell than Windows. There is no true transparency or shadowing in X, although some window managers/programs fake it. You can run virtually any Linux app on virtually any Linux distro. You can run any Linux desktop on any Linux distro and you can customise them to infinity. Just being cheeky here..

I have never bothered with eye candy (why should I make my computer slower on purpose?), but AFAIK transparency is not something that works in X. There are some dirty hacks, but no true alpha.

Is Xgl a dirty hack?

Reading that page, yes

Welcome back. I recently did the same. Im coming back. I only stoped because i was playing counter strike like 24/7 so i was always in windows then kinda forgot about linux.

Go with any linux distribution.
Just download a different desktop environment.
You could also change themes in any distribution.