From the wikipedia:
In Unix-like operating systems, any file or folder that starts with a dot character (for example, /home/user/.config), commonly called a dot file or dotfile, is to be treated as hidden – that is, the ls command does not display them unless the -a flag (ls -a) is used. In most command-line shells, wildcards will not match files whose names start with . unless the wildcard itself starts with an explicit . .
A convention arose of using dotfiles in the user's home directory to store per-user configuration or informational text. Early uses of this were the well-known dotfiles .profile, .login, and .cshrc, which are configuration files for the Bourne shell and C shell and shells compatible with them, and .plan and .project, both used by the finger and name commands.
There's nothing special about a file that starts with a dot, you won't have problems to use them across Unix/GNU+Linux systems. And I say this because you can have issues handling the encoding and end of lines of the files if they are created from windows. But that's not really something you should worry about much.
Or, since I am new to Linux, if you think I should just go with Ubuntu then explain why I should choose it instead of Arch.
That's just matter of debate and opinions. I would ask you how much effort you want to put in installing the OS. Arch is a bit complicated to install, and you need a basic set of linux skills to be succesful. Or, if you want to learn in the process, go for it, the arch community is awesome. But beware that they will tell you RTFM first.
On the other side, Ubuntu and derivatives are easy to install.
You have plenty of distributions to choose from, and each one has it's perks an downsides. But IMHO GNU+Linux is GNU+Linux. Almost any distro will have anything you need out of the box, it's just a matter of taste. I have a bunch of machines around, now I'm in Debian, other has Linux Mint, on other I installed Arch, etc.
And of course, you can always test a distro creating a live USB, or have a dual boot machine.
Go for it!
