Yes, you can use it on your laptop. Yes it is safer than windows. But, you should understand WHY. All Operating systems have viruses. INCLUDING OS X. The main goal of almost all viruses/malware is to get Administrative (root on Unix/Linux) access. Unix/Linux systems make it EXTREMELY difficult to do so. Almost impossible. But nothing is impossible. So, one reason why Liux/Unix is so secure is the rate that patches/fixes are released. If a security flaw is found generally it is fixed in HOURS. For Windows that could be months or years. Another is the general focus on security that Windows developers do not have. I personally think MS focuses less on security options because they work with companies like Norton. It is all about money, at least for MS. Linux is not like that.
Anyway, to find out about Linux and how to get it (a flavor anyway) take a look at the articles section of the forums.