I had Ubuntu on a old Nexus. It was pretty nice, had a few bugs but was a port over so that was expected. Its hard to go with the alt OS when there's not the app development for them.
You might want to start with assigning only one ipv6 address per vps on sign up and then more if requested. You can still get spam/abuse complaints using ipv6 and its a lot easier to clean up a complaint on one ip address over 100's.
We started in Amsterdam. Its a major hub so there is cheap bandwidth, healthy competition, and good latency across most of the EU. France and Germany are also good starting places for the EU.