Lots of questions; was told to come here.

1. Get both. I use the 64 bit and don't have any issues but having both gives you choices.
2. Not sure on this one.
3. No. It will be as fast as anything else you could use and probably faster.
5. Whenever possible, use the package manager to install. It's just simply the best way. https://help.ubuntu.com/7.10/add-applications/C/index.html
4. Probably none. It's rare to have these kinds of problems. Ubuntu is not windows. I have been using ubuntu for over 2 years and have never used an AV software. That's one of the main reasons I switched.

Well, thanks. im still not ready to close this yet, but you answered a lot of my questions. Also:

6:) Is ubuntu able to... recognize flash drives and digital cameras and whatnot?

Answer to 6 is generally yes, but depends on the model of the camera. Flash drives are no problem.

Any more info on number 1, 2 and 4? for 4: we have a windows machine, so should i have it to make sure there are no stuff on it that would harm my windows machine?

7:) Does ubuntu play mp4 files and mp3 files, mov files or is it able to have quicktime at all?
8:) will my ubuntu recognize my PSP?

7) Movie player can play all of them. Don't worry about viruses on Linux, but if you copy the files over to a Windows box, make sure you scan them . . . a binary for Windows won't run on Linux, and programs generally have to be run as root to do any damage even if they were malicious.

Any info on recognizing a PSP? when plugged in, it basically functions as a flash drive.

is there any PSP mp4 converters for linux?

There is a video converter available here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pspvc/ -- hope this helps.

7. Ubuntu can pretty much play any file format but some codecs may not be available. Some of the main ones are call "restricted" because of license issues. It doesn't mean you can't install them. It just means they are not included by default and the legality is a somewhat gray area. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats for more info.

8. My PSP is recognized as a flash drive so yes. You might also check out Avidemux. It has some support for making psp videos. There is a new version out that I think does a better job with psp and other conversions, but it's not available in the regular repos yet (I don't think). The version in the repos does have some psp support but I've never tried it for that so I don't know how well it works.

You can have both windows and Ubuntu on the same computer and neither is likely to harm the other. Windows can't even read the Ubuntu partitions. The only possible harm would be a bad choice during install. Be careful that you don't overwrite windows if you want to keep it (although it's very liberating to dump windows). As always, back up important data before messing with your hard drive.

Thanks, guys! how am i supposed to close the post?