I also bought a slicehost slice a few time ago, and I'm very happy. I haven't set up a machine ever, and I really like the way I did it, just following their wiki. Easy :)

I also have a dreamhost account where I have all my PHP websites (junk). They have a lot of cool stuff (SVN, OneClickInstalls, Jabber) that is easier to use. I keep my slice for running bigger applications (Django mainly).