I'm completely new to linux. I can't even say I'm new to linux because I haven't gotten it installed yet. My hardware is two maxtor hard drives on IDE striping RAID via a promise fast track controller. I've got two NTFS partitions and one 25 gig blank partition. I'm trying to install Slackware 9.1 which says that it has ataraid support.
This is the documentation:

ataraid.i This is a bootdisk with support for IDE RAID controllers. The install disks now have preliminary support for these controllers as well. The drivers included are:
3ware Hardware ATA-RAID controllers.
Promise Fasttrak(tm) IDE RAID.
Highpoint 370 software RAID.
Many of these controllers will require some degree of do-it-yourself setup before and/or after installation

Basically I just want to do a dual boot that works with my controller. I would like to know exactly what "some degree of do-it -yourself setup" involves.

just loading the correct modules and configuring lilo... thats about it

Easier said than done. I looked up how to's on fidisk, lilo, moduels ect. This is a ton to learn for a beginner.

My solution was to just forget about slackware and just go with the newest distrobution of Red Hat. I had to get the driver from promise, which was very easy, and it had a readme file that took me through the driver install step by step. The GUI interface with Red Hat made partitioning and the rest of the install process painless.

Got to learn how to walk before you can run.