Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus  

Didn’t expect that it might be the best choice.

Software to remove:

• brasero
• empathy
• music
• evolution

Software to add:

• thunderbird
• gimp
• inkscape
• blender
• bleachbit
• virtualbox
• safe eyes
• plank with themes or dashtodock extension
• dropbox + topiconplus extension
• yakyak or franz for chat (create desktop entry in usr/share/applications and place app in opt/appname)
• add white gtk and shell theme, la capitana icons, and sf ui display regular font.
• remove unused autostart items: sudo sed -i “s/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g” /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop
• add Google (or any other) online account for contacts, documents, calendar, files, mail and photos syncing
• and add sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
• enjoy.