I used to use Ubuntu for this reason, but the installs eventually go bad.. and it's a huge pain to keep them going. I think they just expect you to keep reinstalling? Updating seems to not work out the best.

Eventually, I just went to debian because it works for at least 5 years. With Ubuntu, I found it was good for a year or two then I wasted more time trying to update or fix something than I ever did with configuration.