For stability I have found the and centos to be very stable.  As well as slackware and probably centos' upstream scientific linux. Adding to that list deviants has a strong production stability record.

On Jul 28, 2011 7:35 PM, <joe@actionline.com> wrote:
>
> What would this esteemed forum's opinions suggest are the top 3 or 4 most
> stable (different) Linux distros for personal use (not as a server)?
>
> While it seems to have been almost universally the case that the hundreds
> of Linux distros are continually competing to be the latest and greatest,
> most advanced, cutting-edge systems -- continually being "updated" and
> made ever-more glitzy and fancy.
>
> However, are there any distros that strive instead to be rock-solid,
> stable, steady work-horses ... rarely (preferably never) requiring
> "updates" just to add in more and more of the latest new-fangled whatever?
>
> Personally, I have preferred distros based on Redhat rather than ubuntu
> (Mandrake/Mandriva and PCLinuxOS). I am interested *only* in a
> personal-use system mainly for work. And I have zero interest in games. I
> really liked the KDE 3.5 system, but I detest KDE 4+ with all of its
> nuisance "widgets" and clutter. And I don't care for Gnome.
>
> Ideally, I would like a system that is as concise and non-bloated as
> possible. Every time I have done an "update" on every system I have ever
> had, it has resulted in a lot of nuisance issues/problems that have wasted
> a lot of time trying to sort out all those issues so I could get back to
> work.
>
> While I realize that the usual reply to a question like this is that
> *every* system needs to be frequently "updated" for security reasons ...
> that seems to me to be a needless nuisance. I have several older systems
> that have run efficiently and reliably 24/7 for years and have *never*
> been updated ... and I have never had a problem with them. But they are
> now several years old and I would like to get something newer.
>
> What say you?
>
>
>
>
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