If you don't like Ubuntu try Debian, SnowLinux, CrunchBang or Linux Mint Debian Edition. I've been using Debian Testing without problems, it's faster and more stable than Ubuntu.

A lot of the folks that I chat with at Ubuntu do like and have switched to Linux Mint.
I tried Mint and it is nice and it runs smooth-

I've installed *buntu like 5+ times and each time i tried to seriously customize things, i either had to break-up meta packages which pull hundreds of dependencies i didn't wish to be installed and/or at the very end, customized too much for that distro to take, i.e., the next major dist-upgrade left the system in an unusable state, ala desktop no longer starting and things like that. *buntu is simply not designed for excessive customization.

The most extreme example in terms of configurability is the system you had to leave - Gentoo.

Maybe you'd like to give Xubuntu a try. But frankly if you managed a Gentoo distribution then i really see no point in switching to an unflexible "let-me-do-that-for-you" distro like Ubuntu. If you like APT, why not try Debian Wheezy? As for other systems, i don't know much about Slackware, but people who use it are often quite happy with it.

It's not that I like apt. I just like it more than yum. Like I said before, this entire switch was for one package, FeNiCs, which at this point I'm thinking I could have done without. Personally I like emerge. I don't mind waiting for a compile if the end result is better. I'm just reluctant to switch back because getting bumblebee to work right with my nvidia card was such a pain.

Ubuntu, as far as I'm concerned is a broken OS. Sure, it's stable out of the box, but if you touch anything, it breaks. That isn't stable, that is meta-stable.
It's not like I've really customized much of anything. So far, with the exception of Maple, and Matlab, everything I have install has been from the package manager. I'm still getting quite a lot of errors.

And if all else fails, there's still an option to manually compile & install a software if your current distro doesn't offer a specific package ready-to-go. As long as it's only a chosen few (1-2 or so) softwares which require that kind of installation - the doit-yourself approach - i can live with that if it allows me to keep my favorite distro..

...and then there is the option to install *buntu in a VM, not fooling around with the system and then use a shared folder (or maybe even an sshfs mount) for data exchange with your host system, only upgrading from LTS to LTS release. I've done likewise for a couple of things already. Sounds a bit over the top, an entire OS for one or two apps but frankly, who cares, in terms of harddisk storage space or a gigabyte extra RAM that would be required for that.

All you need in that case is a FeNiCs icon on the VM's desktop and a system shutdown button. :P

You say the software you need to use is optimized for Ubuntu, so that's a good reason to stay with an Ubuntu-derivative distribution, such as Linux Mint. Mint has several different desktop environments, and I can highly recommend Cinnamon. I'm not familiar with Poseidon, but since that's another Ubuntu derivative it might work. Scientific Linux is based on Red Hat, so would get you away from the Debian/Ubuntu backbone.

Actually this is one of my biggest complaints about many distro's, the functionality of the package manager, apt included. Every time you manually compile something you risk screwing up the package manager. The more software you have install the more likely it is to happen. At least with Gentoo I was usually able to circumvent the problem since I had a pretty good idea of everything that was installed.

You might like to try Slackware then. There IS a package manager, but it doesn't solve dependencies. So, that is left to you. You might like compiling something newer in Slack without screwing package manager. And its a beautifully crafted system, too. Computing beauty you know.

I'm planning on giving that one a try next.

Did you consider my other suggestion, installing *buntu (e.g. Lubuntu) in a VM and not screwing around with the installation except checking if the mouse is moving and the keyboard layout is correct? You would only install two packages there: virtualbox-guest-additions (to be able to conveniently resize/maximize the VM window) and the one software you wanted to use in the first place.

Config/data directories for that software can be replaced with symlinks to your host system's home folder(s) so you would have all data stored on the host and if something goes wrong with the *buntu system in the VM you can easily format the virtual harddisk and re-install any *buntu from scratch which is a pretty easy task which doesn't involve much work.

That way you can keep your favorite distro (your host system) as-is..

I got Ubuntu from a Magazine and have not installed any other Dtops maybe why all is too good on my newer hardware (feel trapped in a lazy box ); I definitely miss other distros as I'm a power hungry KDE man, usually...

Sold on Slackware. Should have switched to this a while ago.

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