Usenet often uses obfuscation to hide the contents of the files, which defeats most of the bots which are only matching filenames to their protected content.
I also prefer Usenet since I can encrypt my connection, whereas torrents require a bit more faith in your VPN provider than I'm comfortable with.
Ubuntu for my servers, and Linux Mint for my Workstation.
I grew up using Debian-based distros, so it's what I'm comfortable with. I like how Mint seems to "just work" most of the time, especially with samba shares and usb peripherals.
Ubuntu server is primarily because it's incredibly easy to get support when you need it.
Arhive.org is where I get most of mine.
https://archive.org/details/xbox360games