Salix OS

Hello,

New Salix user here, so far so good, my question is are package update installs safe for the most part ? I had a bad Ubuntu 12.04 experience. Are there specific security updates and or recommended updates like Ubuntu ?

Also, can you recommend any books or just use online info ?

Welcome, noob51!
Good to hear that things are going well.

A good place to start reading is our very own wiki, begin with the startup guide.
http://docs.salixos.org/wiki/Salix_Startup_Guide

Other useful sources
http://docs.slackware.com/
http://www.slackbook.org/

Back to package updates, they are safe.
Slackware, and thus Salix, has a policy of doing only security updates to stable releases.
This means that you will see the LTS versions of Firefox, rather than bleeding edge versions.
Kernel updates have a few tricks to them, especially if you are using proprietary graphics drivers.

Other software is available from http://slackbuilds.org/ install it using Sourcery or slapt-src