I switched my main work system from windows to a good linux/gnu distro and I have to say that openness is bliss. Just the idea is a reason to shift, each and every user can contribute to the betterment of a project. When I look back I can see how limited I was as a Windows User and the dangers of that blindness, in free software such does not happen because the software and choices are open and hence get shapped by the community: merge, branch and fork. Gnewsense, Parabola, Trisquel and other free linux/gnu distros are the way to go. I for one use Parabola. Ubuntu is not free, software model: Free and open source software with PROPRIETARY components. " Canonical Ltd. (is a UK-based privately held computer software ". "If what is in the public's interest is also in the private interest of government decision-makers, the public interest will be served." http://ingrimayne.com/econ/government/PublicPrivate.html Why should we chain ourselves to private interests if we can truly be free? The world should not be run by a toy in the shape of a person who for dough, sniffs til everyone's demise. I hope that someday people realize the best approach in life is to, from a collection of ideas reach the bottom goal/idea, a upside-down tree of epicness.

I would buy a router, for instance TP-Link TL-WR1043ND, and install openwrt on it. Why this combo?? Because the router is well supported by openwrt, not expensive and for little power consumption you get a wide-range of possibilities. You can do lots of stuff with it if you connect a usb http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/extroot, for instance: create a rsyncd server and connect to it through ssh (replacement for dropbox and the like), create a voip server, printer server, webserver, torrent downloader(rtorrent and rutorrent), rss reader (ttrss), distributed social networking, etc. I am only running an rsyncd server, rtorrent and a webserver and it is running ok. For simple things a pc server is overkill and expensive to run. http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start .