Swords are my favorite weapon! They work great on Barbarian, and the best part about them is they can also be used on Samurai and Paladin (and again on Ninja) if you are lucky enough to unlock one of them, so a smart investment.
You have two main choices for armor: Either "EE" or STRENGTH. Enhanced Effect armor will allow you to tank better, giving you more defense. Strength will give you more damage. You decide which you need, it is often better to have EE armors at first because they are better for soloing if you get stuck doing that, and they help groups by letting you tank up front.
For charms, you should look for ones with +Strength. Other good mods would be +Life or +Critical Strike to name a few, but +Strength should be priority as it boosts weapon damage the most.
For point distribution, I like to add 5-10 to VITA to increase your HP pool, then max STRENGTH for the most damage output. This is tried and tested, and works very well.
For abilities, I like to use Knockdown and Powerstrike (you are not limited to only your class abilities) I like to add to Knockdown and put 1 point in Powerstrike early, then later on I add a few more to powerstrike. You can also experiment with a third, in which case I would add in Bottomsup or maybe Multistrike or even the Retrobution if you tank.
This is just one way to play, not the only way, keep that in mind. If you need any help feel free to PM me.