Medium-Weight Linux distro recommendations?

Hi everyone.

I have had Ubuntu Linux installed on my laptop that I use at school for some time. I'm working on my PhD in Mathematics and mostly use my laptop for:

• gvim and C coding
• MATLAB
• LaTeX work (in gvim using vim-latex)
• Internet browsing

I installed the newest version of Ubuntu on my desktop so that I could work on my C code there as well in an environment similar to what's on my laptop and I found it to be bloated and slow. I'd like a "medium weight" distro that won't totally confuse me, since I'm semi-new to Linux, but at the same time won't crush me with bloated UI stuff I don't really need, since I'm mostly using command-line stuff anyway.

I'm willing to try any combination of distro/desktop environments and I'm willing to learn more about Linux, so please suggest away!