I only have one available comp (Thinkpad T60p with Vista) and would like to know if Slackware is stable in the sense that I could dual boot with windows and not have to worry about accidentally destroying my whole system. I am installing it for educational purposes, as a total noob, and I am not sure of the risks involved in using my main machine.

Welcome to Slackware and LinuxQuestions forums.
Slackware is one of the oldest and most mature GNU/Linux distros alive today, one of its main goals is stability and it's great for educational purposes, because reference

The review at distrowatch.com of Slackware as one of the major distributions says So on the learning and stability side you have a winner, but if you say you are a total newbie, I'd suggest you first try an easier distro for now, like Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS. Some people may disagree and tell you to try your best, search the forums, irc, ask for help, etc. and that's fine too, but harder for sure.

Besides that, the first thing you should do is:
* Back up all your important data and test the backups
Then you're free to have fun, reinstall, crash your system as many times as you want without worry.
Good luck

1 members found this post helpful.

I second that. Slackware was my first distro, and I borked my hard drive a few times before I learned the finer points of partitions and file systems.

Another major point while learning with Slackware: have a copy of the Slackbook handy (I printed one out). Documentation is really, really, REALLY critical.

Asides from that, Me = Clam.Happy()

I would like to state that in my opinion, the dangerous step of dual-booting is repartitioning your hard drive (including likely shrinking your Windows partition). This is something you'll have to do regardless of Linux distribution. Well, I guess you could boot up a live CD, but that isn't the best way to learn the OS.

I, too, would highly recommend Slackware for your first Linux distro. However, if you don't intend to dig in or spend some time learning (ie if you have no time because of school) then getting a quick easy distro like Ubuntu might be better for now. Plus, I think Ubuntu and some other distros like it will automatically do the partitioning stuff for you or at least guide you in it.

It is true that the partitioning/formatting part is pretty much the main way to screw up the rest of your system. The only other snag I can think of is if you screw up your bootloader (lilo or grub) and then you cannot boot into any OS (just to let you know you can fix that using a live cd so it isn't the end of the world).

As previously mentioned you should backup your important files/settings, but do this regardless of whether you decide to install Linux or not. You'll never know if you need a backup until one day you do....and trust me that day will come eventually.

If you are really nervous about partitioning and formatting I have two suggestions for you.
1) Find a cheap (or free) computer to do all your testing on. You will be surprised at how many old computers you can get your hands on for less than $5. You can find some really good ones from Universities that regularly upgrade. Talk (very nicely) to some of the IT guys and they can probably point you in the right direction (or even offload some of their "crap" directly to you to make space).

2) Look into using a virtual machine. Vmware server, for instance, will allow you to create and use a virtual machine with Linux or even Windows on it. Assuming you don't have multiple Windows licenses you can just install multiple Linux OSs to practice your multi-booting. This has the added bonus of getting to try out multiple Linux distros.

I would say:
Before you do anything, DEFRAG windows before you shrink it's partition or you'll hose it.
There's nothing wrong with starting out with the mighty Slack. I wish that I did.
I've been useing linux for 3 years now and didn't learn much at all till a few months ago when I started useing Slack.
When you install Slack do the full install and you'll have a very good system that will do just about everything that the average person needs in a basic system.
After the install.
Start up and put the dvd back in, you'll find a manual on the disk as well as many other packages.
Go for Slack and go for the gold.
Download the Super Grub Disc. It can restore your winderz mbr.
Download Gparted. --> Free partitioning disc.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for the tips. I think I will try to get an old desktop or something.

tmsncribble, what type of laptop you using? Do you know what your hardware specifications are:hard drive size, processor speed, amount of ram, video card type, snd card, how do you connect to internet, and what do you currently use your Vista operating system for? Do you have an extra external hard drive by any chance ? I love learning to use slackware12 its my first linux distro experience. I started out dualbooting win98se and Slackware 8. lol Had to reinstall more times than I like to think but it was because of windows crashes unrelated to Slackware setup.

you can use a laptop for playing with slackware, as long as you have everything set up before hand (extra space) and you don't botch it playing with cfdisk then there should be no problem dual booting using the windoze nt loader. this is what i did when i was learning slackware and linux.