In case anyone’s interested and searches for that on this forum, there’s a how-to for counterpartyd on ArchLinux on the Wiki.
Those who are mildly annoyed by Ubuntu may want to take a look at ArchLinux which offers an entirely different set of annoyances.
It is more complex to install and configure, but once you’re done, the rest is easier than Ubuntu.
All packages are built from source so it takes time to install and build them, but on the other hand if you have a complex setup or need some packages that Ubuntu simply doesn’t have, ArchLinux may be the answer. For example, Bitcoin Core with addrindex is available and can be built with a single command just like counterpartyd.
Overall ArchLinux may be intimidating, but for experienced Linux users it’s not a bad choice if you don’t reinstall your OS frequently (in that case I’d recommend Ubuntu 14.04 which has a fairly good unattended install).
Other choices of OS that are not officially supported but work are Debian and OS X.