For me, F14 was the last good version. F15/16 crash (F15 was so bad X wouldn't even work). F16 became mostly stable after dropping the use of NetworkManager. It seems to do ok when there is only one network interface (wired or wireless), but useless when two or more - It couldn't seem to figure out default routes at all, even when told. Systemd can't seem to get booted properly, much less shutdown (F17 wouldn't shutdown, and F16 has issues if a VM won't shutdown).

And the excuse that systemd allows for fast booting is shown false, as a Slackware boots in less time. The included SysV init emulation isn't an emulation (it just isn't capable of providing the proper ordering).

And the interdependencies caused by systemd, dbus, and udev are a real puzzle.

I have been using Fedora since the Core 7. I actually have grown accustomed to Gnome 3 and I have improved my work flow (Guake helps). I have a home server that has good up times, I reboot for kernel updates, when I remember to. I have a media computer running Fedora with XFCE and XBMC (XBox Media Center). At work I have a Fedora 17 file/pxe/web server I only reboot when a hard drive fails or I reinstall the next Fedora version. My main computer at work runs Fedora 17 and it only crashes when I do something stupid like hot-plug in a massively failed hard drive. Along with a few netbooks and notebooks from the last 5 years.

So for me, in my circumstance and my hardware it has been very stable and usable. I haven't used Suse or OpenSuse in years so I have no opinion there. I work better in Fedora than Ubuntu or Mint, that is just me. I am looking forward to downloading Fedora 18 in the morning and setting it up my PXE server and running the install on all my hardware.

No reason not to try as many distributions as you can until you find the one for you.

fedora 4 to 12
opensuse 11.3 & 4 and 12.1 ( soon to be 12.2 )

11.3 had a nasty gnome nautilus bug

just nautilus would crash from time to time , fixed in 11.4 .

12.1 has been stable except for my fstab mounted usb drive
( i did not wright a udev rule )

it hangs on shout down sometimes

now fedora

3 or 4 problems with opensuse
This can not be said of fedora

Do not get me wrong i like fedora

and i did know what i was getting into
And at the time i did want to learn how to fix a busted os or program

but think of things this way

the two OS's have VERY different "target market"
VERY DIFFERENT

Opensuse is in a lot of laboratories and in a lot of offices - 18 month lifespan ( 2 versions + 2 months)

You DO NOT but Fedora in the office ( small tech support office ?? maybe??) -- 13 month life span ( one version + 1 month )

but can you see the avg. secretory trying to figure out a buggy SELinux rule
or why some program dose not work now


Fedora tries to work like this

use the newest of the new ( mostly) then
1)
push the code past the breaking point ( adding in new things )
hack the beta versions and the NEW versions of programs to get them to work

2)
repeat #1
3)
repeat #2
4)
then, add new things
be the first on the block with something so new that fedora is the ONLY one using it YET
( think of fedora 8 and pulseaudio , that was fun )