Hi! Sorry for the newb opinion piece, but wouldn't it be somewhat better to just take a distro you could consider decent and then work on your personal modifications with that? It seems kind of contradictory to dislike X, Y and Z and yet not to put any effort to purging the supposed hellish evil from your system. I would personally get a distro I'm comfortable with and build it up because that's the power you have with open source (or rather, 'open sewers', at your convenience.) and that's infinitely better than Winblows.
In fact, if you have specific needs I can't see WHY you wouldn't put effort toward tailoring your system. Cheers. ------- ab
