Picking a host OS

[TekWarren]

Don't slap me as I'm sure this debated often. I am getting ready re-do a workstation that I am mainly using to run virtualbox these days. I just scrounged up more ram (6GB) and it's a core duo machine setup in raid. Currently it has XP on it with remnants of Novell client and tools since we just moved to AD...so it is in need of a fresh install. Since I am mainly working from a laptop now and running VM's on this workstation I have been toying with running Ubuntu on it and dedicating it to VB machines. I really only have a couple primary VM's I'm working with right now but potentially more. I am not that versed with linux but have played with Ubuntu off and on. I definitely need a GUI to work in, I don't have the time to bang my head on a terminal only setup. The only thing I am concerned about due to lack of knowledge is that one of my VM's currently has a dedicated (bridged) NIC that I setup since it runs a console app for deploying and managing our anti-virus software. I'm assuming I could still dedicate this NIC via bridging to that VM under Linux just not sure how at this point.

Any thoughts or comments? My other option is windows 7 x64 so I can address the 6GB of ram, that would mean running Ubuntu 64bit also are there issues with this?

[vbox4me2]

I prefer xp64 as host for such setup, works fine, fast and no hassle, and its got a gui