People often mistake the word “stable” in different contexts and I wish to clear up the confusion. There are two main meanings in the world of GNU/Linux for the word above and these two meanings are vastly different: once booted the system does not crash, therefore it is stable once installed the system behaves exactly the same for the lifetime of this install, therefore it is stable In both examples above you can mix-in the word “reliable” in more than one way as well, but for me personally the word reliable means that I can rely on my computer to be ready to do my bidding when I am ready to use the system.