I mean, for instance, the version of an operating system. And by stable I would rather mean reliable. I know a 10.9 kernel has many minor modifications where as the change to a major version number, 11 in this case, involves sort of a design from scratch. Well, that's a question.

Please clarify.

10.9 or 11.0 of what?

Let's change the example. Linux 1.2.13 or Linux 2.0.0?

as in what one is "more stable"

both and nether

it really depends on exactly what it is

Imagemagick is known for having introduced new and MORE bugs in newer versions VS the last version
( at least they were )

OS's like Debian stable and RHEL are known for being stable
-- Fedora is NOT

but the software in rhel dose have the CURRENT bug fixes and security fixes that fedora has .

also a lot of people would never consider a 2.0 or 3.0 as STABLE
seeing as major version changes normally have NEW features , but not always .

If you are referring to the kernel, a good rule of thumb is that the more recent the version, the more stable it is likely to be.

Both of those versions are quite old (we're talking decades here) and likely will be unable to deal with a large percentage of modern hardware.

You might consult this website.

"Generally(!) speaking," I suggest that the rule-of-thumb goes more or less like this:

• "If [only] the rightmost digit changes," stay asleep.
• "But if any other digit changes," pay attention!

But also (and within the foregoing rule-of-thumb ...) "distro" publishers are actually also quite clear(!) as to precisely what they consider to be "stable," or not.

Developers are always quite(!) clear as to what they intend to "release to the [potential ...] 'general public,'" versus what they are merely intent to release 'to nerds!'

And, "all of that having now been said," frankly nothing is ever "a design from scratch." Yessirree, we are always marching forward . . .

"And, If ye be so inclined ..." aye, "if ye dare ... then ... then(!) ... then ye surely be surely welcome to drop by ... "the developer forums" ... 'Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here" ;-) ... to see for yerself exactly(!) How The Magick™ Is Done ...

But, hey, why not leave your calling-card here with me. So that I can, y'know, hand it graciously to your next of kin . . . . . .

As an afterthought, stf92, what exactly are you trying to accomplish?

A moment of inspiration, eee?

To make a long story short, I am trying to establish wifi communications under slackware 9.0, the device being an RT3090 and it seems that's a very difficult task. So, as new slackware versions do have a drive able to manage that device, I was thinking of just writing an ad hoc driver. I have the new slackware version driver sources and, so, I already have that part of the driver that looks towards the device. All I need is to modify the part looking towards the kernel.

To accomplish the task, I've just downloaded Rubini's Linux Device Drivers as a hands-on-guide and hope to spend some nice time writing a driver.

When I was starting out with computers, I was told not to trust any package with a minor version number of zero, because it was only one step up from the beta release. A minor version of "1" meant that the new bugs had been taken out.

May also wish to familiarize yourself with Software Versioning
Technique is usually consistent, regardless of "examples" given.

Thanks for your post.

Depends what you mean by "stable".

"Less likely to crash" or "less likely to change"?

In any case, reliable. I think Hazel's reply makes much sense.

Emacs makes the first major release with the minor number set to "1", e.g., the first Emacs 25 release was 25.1, and the upcoming 25.2 will have the new bugs taken out.

Clearly, this is specifically intended to trick hazel