Its quick (overlooking slow internet access) and easy to set up Ubuntu Jaunty 64 bit for use with the FOSSGIS stack. Here are the packages I install once the base system is set up (including a few non-fossgis ones that are nice to have).
sudo apt-get install build-essential vim grass libqt4-core \ libqt4-debug libqt4-dev libqt4-gui libqt4-qt3support libqt4-sql \ lsb-qt4 qt4-designer qt4-dev-tools qt4-doc qt4-qtconfig uim-qt gcc \ libapt-pkg-perl resolvconf gdal-bin libgdal1-dev libgeos-dev proj \ libgdal-doc libhdf4g-dev libhdf4g-run python-dev python-gdal libgsl0-dev \ g++ libjasper-dev libtiff4-dev subversion libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 ccache \ make libpq-dev flex bison cmake txt2tags python-qt4 python-qt4-dev \ python-sip4 sip4 python-sip4-dev postgresql-8.3-postgis vim ctags \ vim-scripts python-django python-psycopg2 vim apache2 \ sun-java6-fonts python-geoip imagemagick grass-dev ia32-libs \ graphviz txt2tags texlive-fonts-recommended \ texlive-fonts-recommended-doc texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-base-doc \ tipa tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin texlive-base-bin-doc \ texlive-common texlive-doc-base gv latex2html texlive-latex-extra \ libqwt5-qt4-dev pyqt4-dev-tools drivel lightning-extension thunderbird-gnome-support \ gwibber python-django-evolution python-django-dmigrations python-django-djblets \ python-django-debug-toolbar python-django-registration python-django-lint \ python-django-tagging awn-applets-c-extras awn-applets-python-extras\ gnome-do tomcat6-admin tomcat6 enigmail
You also need to get rid of this since it doesnt play nice with QGIS:
sudo apt-get remove uim-qt3
Note: the ia32-libs is needed to run google earth under ubuntu 64