I'm curious if anyone has tried both Vista beta and a "Linux beta." Seeing as how many different distros there are, I really mean tried Kernel 2.5.x but whatever. I've heard some nightmares about Vista, one saying he stuck in his USB flash card and that crashed the system. I'm wondering if Linux betas are that unstable? Or even within some remote distance from that amount of instability.

Running bleeding edge on the kernel can cause all manner of failures, including loss of a filesystem (from personal experience).

However, distributions that run beta typically are using a stable kernel. The beta designation refers to the integration of the packages, their ability to detect hardware and properly install, and to apply maintenance successfully. These characteristics are the primary consideration when determining if a distribution is good enough. All other issues can be resolved post distribution through the maintenance system.

yep, running Vista Beta 2 w/ Office 2007 (love the new look of Excel...openoffice, you got a long ways to go..sorry), with the following:

Windows XP
Fedora Core 5 (sucks)
Suse 10.1 (sucks)
Gentoo w/ GCC 4.2/ kernel 2.6.17/ svn's/cvs's: Fluxbox, Xfce, FireFox, e17, ....Xorg 7.1...very bleeding...I like it
Arch 7.2 and some blood...the best distro IMHO
Slackware Current - still has many outdated apps...
elive .5 Beta - nice candy
Kubuntu RC - many up-to-date apps to choose from

I have no problem running all these on the same pc with 2 internal and 2 external USB hdd's. Just have to play around with the bios and the grub/lilo .conf's to get some of them to boot. The only problem I have is rpm's.

I think it depends to some extent on the applications and hardware used as well as the experience of the user. I have been impressed with the quality of some of the "beta" Linux distributions. At this moment, I am using Kubuntu 6.06 RC and it is solid. My only complaint is that its support of WPA wireless encryption is not yet fully supported out of the box (so to speak--I did not get it in a box ). The incorporated KNetworkManager (0.1 prerelease) is a good start, though.

I run an testing gentoo system (accept ~amd64) and it runs very smoothly. But regarding Vista beta... I wouldn't exactly classify XP as stable (I share Slackware's idea of stable: if it crashes at all, its unstable)

As we know, most operating-system crashes (or crashes of a major subsystem resulting in permanent user-denial-of-service [PUDOS]) are most frequently caused by hardware drivers. This is true of Windows as well as Linux. The number of combinations to be tested grows too large to exhaustively test, as do the possible variations in timing.

I assure you that, if you stick "your USB flash card" into any system that has a driver for it which is the wrong driver (or a driver that thinks it can support the device but actually can't) you can get a kernel crash or PUDOS. That'll be true on any system at all.

Therefore, "instability" becomes something that must be quantified and qualified: "unstable under what conditions?" Even the safest driver in the world can have an accident sometimes.