Best Linux security Suite

[Spider]

I'm considering brushing up my knowledge of security and the like and thus want to install Linux on my machine to use the various open source tools available. I know there are a number of security centric distro’s available, one of which being BackTrack (which, to this point, I plan on using), but just wondered if there was a better alternative? Or indeed should I just install a generic distro such as fedora or ubuntu and install all the tools manually?

Any advice welcomed.

 

[Spider]

I want to learn the fundamentals of network security and penetration testing. it'll be purely a research platform and maybe the odd bit of Ethernet/wireless security cracking (on my own (W)LAN of course).