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Settled the matter - sort of
I've settled on Debian stable as a general purpose distro.
For my own entertainment I'll be trying Slackware on a spare box.
I came up with a slightly more rational method for evaluating distros that may work for others.
1. What applications do you use most often?
2. What version of those applications do you need for bug fixes and or usability?
3. How much time do you choose to spend on the command line?
Once you've answered those questions it's a fairly simple matter to check the distros on the web. The third one is a key question. A distro may not have the version of an application that you want. With some effort you may be able to download or compile the correct version.
It takes more time effort and knowledge to make a non standard version work. It can be done.
Second step:
Browse the user forums for the distros you are interested in. Check for correct answers, timely responses and a generally friendly atmosphere.
I would not give up on a distro just because the forums put me off. It's just helpful to know in advance.
Bottom line is that the stable distro question may be impossible to answer. Most Linux distributions seem to racing madly toward an unknown future.
Partly this is driven by hardware. If there was open source CPU similar to the Sempron 140 ie low power cool and fairly powerful and and open source gpu similar to the ati 4650 and an open source wireless chipset then someone(s) might commit to writing maintaining and improving an entirely new operating system.
If there was some assurance that the hardware would be around for 10+ years.
In my last job before I was forced to retire for lack of job opportunity, I used to scrounge up parts worldwide that could keep an old product working a little longer. The manufacturing plant I worked for had customers that were running systems that required Windows 95!
The customers were not interested in upgrading if the old machine could be kept alive. In my day to day life I end up in the offices of small businesses that are happily keeping all their invoices databases and etc on Windows 98 or XP systems.
There is potentially a market for a stable operating system running on stable hardware.
For example I designed a solar controller using inexpensive usb digital analog controllers and an older computer. I wrote the software with free compilers.
There is no way I could sell the system and hope to also support the customer. In two or three years the hardware would be unavailable and the software would possibly no longer work on newer hardware.
But stable hardware is a totally different thread.
I appreciate the feedback everyone gave me on this one.
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