just was cruising and found this
 

I figured this would be a good place to start asking some questions as im still using windows but wish to move into using linux but a little cautious of moving away from an OS that I'm so used to
I was just wondering how badly can my system be damaged if I'm messing about with partitioning drives and the such
and how much Gb is recommended having freed up
as I have not got much left as I have a laptop and most of it is taken up with music and the such
also was wondering what programming languages are most popular with linux because i did a little programming in school but would really like to get back and involved with it
and what linux distro would you recommend for someone that is new to it but is interested in how all the programming fits together and using the shell and really get the most out of linux as windows tends to be restrictive
am thinking about getting a PC as well as my current laptop so would it be better holding off til i get the PC?
also if you could point me in the right direction of things to look into and learn about would be much appreciated
or anything that can be suggested to newbie of linux
any feedback is much appreciated
:)

You can start with a live CD, no changes are made to your system, it will run from CD
Every distro has a live CD

yeah was checking those out just gotta get round to getting some blank discs
also is having vista an issue or is it fairly linux friendly when it comes to dual booting?

That should be no problem.
I would suggest to do some research using google.
A good start
http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/14/how...sta-and-linux/

It is always nice to start of with Live distributions so that you do not necessarily have to install them. Ubuntu is one such live distribution that is one of the most popular ones when we talk about starting off with linux.
And I would suggest you also take the similar path though Fedora, Mandriva and Open Suse also have been newbie friendly. Most of them have Live cd versions. You wont at least need to worry about partitioning the drive.
As far as your fear of damaging the drive goes, you can atmost lose all the data but it is most unlikely that it will have any hardware effects on it. And if you have a backup of your data just reinstalling windows should bring your system up.
And as far as programming goes there is nothing that you can not do. It is upto you what you want. Perl, Ruby, PHP, Python, C are some of the popular languages on Linux but not limited to these.

I figured this would be a good place to start
http://www.esharez.info/imgs/signature_deepthakur.jpg:)

How is this relevant to this thread? When you post something like this, please tell us what point you are making---unless it is obvious.

If that is good place to start then this mine post is as useful .. :p