I've been unhappy with the direction of Ubuntu for awhile, but having said that it's still the best collection of packages that install with fairly sane default

I've been unhappy with the direction of Ubuntu for awhile, but having said that it's still the best collection of packages that install with fairly sane defaults for desktop/laptop. I've adopted a model of starting with ubuntu-minimal installation and just installing the debs I want (disable recommended packages by default). This gives me a fairly reliable base from Ubuntu but a system assembled how I want (except systemd, can't avoid systemd).