LinuxQuestions.org - slackware as first *nix OS?

Hi, I've got 70 GB of extra hard drive space (only 22 GB used) right now. So I've decided to set up a dual boot to [slackware]. We've got one linux box right now that is only used as a router and server, not as a normal-use computer. RedHat is installed on it.

On my normal-use computer, like I said, I want to dual boot with my current Windows XP and slackware. I do a lot of programming in c/c++, and am semi-familiar with linux so far.

I've done a LITTLE bit of scripting on linux. I wrote this script to check if my game server was running, and if not start it up, so it ran 24 hours per day. Just little things like that.

Whenever I used our linux box with redhat I telnetted into it from our windows box, so I am familiar with doing things from the command line.

Oh, and we run samba to share files over our windows and linux box. DSL comes in on our linux box out to all our other windows comps.

1) Do you think slackware will be too hard to install and use with what I've told you about myself?

2) Is it customizeable?

3) Will it meet my programming needs?

4) Can I get windows clone-programs on it? EX: on redhat there is a clone for AOL's AIM, things like that.