I'm sorry, I erroneously presumed that you didn't have any linux experience when you said you wanted to switch from windows.
Wayland support is a bit of an issue with non-DE WM's, and that means that applications that could use it, won't, which is a bit of a bummer. If you're using KDE though, you can probably appreciate the wayland functionality that has been added with the new version. My favourite Wayland DE project is Hawaii, I think it's on the right track, combining the simplicity and efficiency of something like XFCE with the graphics power of more straightforward wayland coding, but as I said, it's not finished yet, and pretty limited.
For mathematics projects and scientific word processing, forget MS-Word, seriously! Linux has LaTex, which is the industry standard for scientific document processing. You should really use that, it's far more advanced than MS-Word, even with extra software for scientific stuff. I've actually written scientific/mathematical extensions for different commercial word processors a long time ago when I was 12-13 years old, so I know what the problems are, and LaTex more than caters to all the needs of scientific/mathematical publications. It's simply unequalled, and I use it quite frequently as standard word processor for other things also.
A minimalist OS is something that you make, not something that you install. That's my opinion anyway. I still compile mu own kernels from time to time, because sometimes, I need a kernel cocktail that just isn't available out of the box from any distro. You don't have to use LFS to get all the benefit, in fact, my favourite distro to compile my own kernel into is Gentoo, although yesterday, I compiled kernel 3.14 from git in Arch, which is a very close second. Linus Torvalds has asked the community to build 3.14 asap because there were so many commits that it needs as much testing as possible, and we all obey the penguin in Linux right... but seriously, it works great on my test machine.
It's all about your config when you make, you have to check the right boxes. It's not that hard, you just have to make a note of what you really need in terms of functionality and firmwares.
There are several patchsets that I normally use when compiling a kernel:
- I normally start with a vanilla kernel from Linus Torvalds' git. I usually don't get my kernel from kernel.org. Something tells me that I'm better off cloning Torvalds' git...
- sometimes I use the brain fuck scheduler, especially on desktop/laptop machines;
- I always use grsec and pax on servers, never on desktops. Grsec is always a couple of kernel version behind, but not much. Iirc they're at 3.10 now;
- I don't normally use the Gentoo kernel as it comes, but I use a vanilla kernel and then patch it with linux-ice, which provides the same optimization as Gentoo normally does, plus it provides TuxOnIce support for energy efficient machines that can use it;
- A good combines patch set cocktail is linux-pf, the pf patch is a combination of TuxOnIce, Gentoo patches, and the brain fuck scheduler, plus some other stuff, like some experimental filesystem support and things. I usually go for individual patches though, it's been a long time since I used the pf patch set;
- A fast allround kernel, not the fastest, but a good balance between speed and functionality, is the ZEN project kernel.
An unpatched/vanilla kernel can be manually configured, it only takes like 2 minutes, and it's not that hard to do. Because I really like to always run the latest and greatest kernels on desktops, I usually configure it myself when making. The whole process of making a kernel based on the vanilla git clone, takes about 20 minutes on a fast machine, about 45-60 minutes on a power saving laptop. It takes less time than to compile Firefox with all trimmings in Gentoo.
Once you make your own kernel, you'll immediately see the enhanced speed of the system. It's just the way it is, and it really makes a difference. If you're on Gentoo, and you emerge all of your apps instead of installing the binaries from the repos, you can get quite a substantial performance gain. It's not for everyone though, there are a lot of kernel updates, and not many people care enough to compile their kernel every time Linus has a new kernel on his git. But for me personally, it's worth it. But then I'm crazy, I usually compile from source even in Arch or Mageia, I just like the snappiness of a system on which everything is compiled locally just the way I want it...