As for the basement itself when we moved in it had two Edison style A19 fixtures but you couldn't see worth diddly down there so I went to Lowe's and picked up some Romex and some T12 fluorescent fixtures and installed them. One of them has been converted to T8 already (ballast failure) but I may convert all three fixtures (one has already been done today) to LED with the high utility rates here.

Those old magnetic ballasts lasted forever. We had a fluorescent light in the bathroom in my childhood home that we lived in for 14 years I think we relamped it 2-3 times and never had to replace a starter or ballast.