Ok, so it's becoming ever more evident that my Windows box simply WILL NOT play nice with Apache. To that effect, I refuse to use it to do any coding.

MAMP works fine on my lappy, but I need something rugged and solid and capable of serving my inner geek desires, especially when it comes to coding, which Linux lends itself so naturally too.

So with that said, I've decided to give Linux a second chance. It's been many many years since my last Linux box, so I'm a bit rusty around the edges. I need help picking a distro.

I need something stable, customizable, and rugged. I don't need 8 million features I just need something really good for coding, file serving, and using as a test server (LAMP).

My friend uses Ubuntu and is satisfied with it, for the most part, however, Ubuntu forces you to use GNOME, which is better than KDE, but it's still GNOME.

Just what distros are the best right now and why? That's really what I'm asking.