Shit, if you go with one of the more popular distros, stability is just fine. My mint install on my laptop has never needed any attention or time since install. Same on my main desktop pc, the little box hooked up to the TV, my dad's ancient desktop, and my "junk" box that's just there for general use by the household, and gets whatever parts come off of the others after an upgrade.
I still run Windows 7 on my media pc, because musicbee, but it dual boots and I've had more hassle out of windows than mint on it. And yes, since it always gets asked, the win7 box is air gapped.
Seriously, stability is a non issue now. It wasn't a real issue back when I first said "fuck Microsoft" and set up that dual boot on my media box that used to be a gaming box. The only stability issue I ran into there was after an upgrade, and I'm fairly certain I screwed that up because it's never happened again.
All of that is on mint. Yeah, basic as hell, but that's the point.