Are Xubuntu mirror's and torrents safe to download from?
 

How will I know the torrents and mirrors are safe to download Xubuntu or for that matter any linux distro?
Xubuntu site mentions downloading it from torrent but I've read elsewhere that torrents aren't safe?

You can check that your Xubuntu download is safe and uncorrupted by running an MD5 checksum.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM

torrent itself is a file transfer protocol (like ftp - just works in a very different way). With other words torrent itself is a tool to download (and share) files. Torrent itself is more or less safe, but you need to know what do you download from where - which is not so trivial. That's why the linux distros usually have a (md5) checksum and you can check if the downloaded file is ok. The official checksums are available on the official sites, so they are most probably valid, although it can be hacked too.

i see no reason to distrust xubuntu.org.
also their torrents.

torrenting as such is not less safe than browsing the web.

Is there a way to find out which servers I'm downloading the iso from?

in case of ftp yes, in case of torrent no.

Well... Theoretically you could log all connections of the torrent client, and work your way back through that.
But quick & easy : No.
As mentioned earlier : check the checksums.

^ it's not necessary, because all the torrent's chunks are always and routinely checksumed.

the dangers of torrenting are rather in what you are downloading, not how you do it.

One should get in the habit of running a md5 or shal on downloads.

The original torrent file ought to be obtained from trusted web page.

I forget the setting in torrents to make them much less secure. Something about the way it gets sources over the original torrent list. Someone who runs torrent programs would know that setting.

I have a iso.torrent file 54KB sitting on my desktop, do I just go to virtual box to start the ball rolling or do I need to do something else with it now? My first experience with iso.torrent files.

what is an iso.torrent file. Where is it from?
As far as I know we can have an iso or a torrent file. 54kb looks too small for an iso.

^ you need to download the actual .iso first.
to do that, open the .torrent file in your favorite torrenting software; transmission-gtk is often preinstalled.

file too small?
 

I clicked download from here:
https://xubuntu.org/

xubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd 64.iso.torrent Torrent File 54 KB

I went here https://xubuntu.org/
and clicked Download top left of screen and that 54kb was all I got.

My host is windows not linux, can you recommend a light weight torrent software?

i could have 10 years ago, but not anymore.
sorry.