Trying to get back into linux again. Figured Ubuntu would be the best for this. Let me know if you think otherwise, as I also considered debian.

I plan on having it run as my primary home router, 1080P media streaming(LAN), SFTP SSH and Remote desktop, and more than likely will be a designated torrent box.

Should I be using Ubuntu desktop or ubuntu server? or any other builds you recommend? Also what should I expect my min. hardware requirements to be?

Hi, welcome to LQ!

Ubuntu desktop and server are basically the same with different settings. Once you setup it like you want, the difference will be negligible. As for minimum requirement, Debian usually require less, but if we are talking about modern hardware, it probably does not mater as much as it did a decade ago. If you want to use it as a router, better removing Networkmanager and configuring the interfaces by hand. I currently use one of my debian box as one and it work very well. I suggest this tutorial http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=716192 . DNSMASQ is awesome. For torrent, I recommand transmission daemon or anything with a good web gui and samba for sharing the resulting file with Windows (or other Linux boxes).

If you put the box in front of the internet, not behind a router or hardware firewall, remember to turn off password login for SSH and require authorized connections keys. If you don't, your password better be strong.

Hi! & Welcome

Before I switched to Debian I enjoyed having Ubuntu for several years.

Here's a few websites to inform you:

http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/whats-new
https://help.ubuntu.com/

There is also a website where you can observe all the distro's.
http://distrowatch.com/

Good luck

Welcome,

In terms of distros, there a whole lot to choose from. Most of what sets the distros apart from each other are 2 things.

1) Packaging System -- Systems used for installation of precompiled software
Most Debian based systems use Apt-Get to download packages from repositories.
Examples of Debian based systems include Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, and many others

2) Window Management System -- Your Desktop Environment (KDE, Gnome, Xfce, etc)

Personally I prefer something lightweight, so I usally opt for something like Xubuntu (Ubuntu with Xfce) or Mint 13 (MATE).

I found that most folks that liked Ubuntu also liked Debian and Mint like Msxenix mentioned.

I use Mint 12 KDE from time to time and well... Mint is nice.

The advise I was given when I was new to Linux was to download a few of the distro's and give them a try before installing. Maybe you'll consider that.

http://linuxmint.com/
http://www.debian.org/

Welcome to LQ.

The choice of a distro is a individual thing. Because what i prefer you could hate
Anyway, for linux user-friendly, with a good community, in addition to Ubuntu i suggest Fedora, Mint or OpenSuse.

So really, I should not use this as a router until I fully understand how to use it. Unless of course I buy a firewall or router to stick in front of it. Which would really defeat the purpose. Thanks for the input. I might check out mint. I really do want something ultra-light weight and add only what I need.

What kind of CPU/RAM/GPU requirements might I need to decode 2 full 1080P movies and stream them simultaneously?

Alo, why recommend 32bit ubuntu over 64bit? Is 64bit still highly in development? WOuldn't i have more processign power with 64?

I am guessing they recommend 32 BIT because some people dont know what kind of computer they have so to ensure that it will work in their system they suggest 32bit.

But if your system is 64 BIT and you know for sure then go with the 64. It will be best for you!

Good luck

Unless your computer has more than 4GB memory, I reccomend starting out with 32 bit Linux for someone new. 64 bit linux is good, but sometimes you'll run into trouble when dealing with applications made for 32bit, where you will need the 32-bit libraries to satisfy dependencies.

Most of the good ones have multi-lib support ie they handle both 64 and 32 bit libs on a 64 bit install.

Yeah, sorry didn't mean to make it sound that 32bit libraries wouldn't run. I just thought that it would be easier to start with 32 bit rather than having to worry about getting 32 bit libs.

Normal pkg mgr will handle that for you eg I run 64 bit Centos, but not ALL pkgs are avail as 64 bit, so it automatically installs and runs 32 bit for those...
In other words, (if using the pkg mgr) then the default on a 64 bit system is to offer 64 bit pkgs if avail, otherwise it will offer 32 bit.
HTH

I had issues with Gens:386 on a 64 bit copy of Mint. I tried installing it from the built in gui software manager, but it was unable to install the 32 bit dependencies required to make the program work.

I've heard there are other problems that have similar issues, but I'm not sure how widespread the issue is.

Surprisingly it ended up being fixed after upgrading to Linux 3.5.5. The program actually installed successfully, though i had to manually install a 32bit version of a library to make it run.