FreeBSD 5.4: Is it generally unstable?

[David Hogan]

Hi List,

First of all, I'm new regarding FreeBSD, But i'm an experienced linux user
who's been using the Trustix distribution for the last few years, so please
bear with me. In my time using Trustix, and participating in the mailing
lists, it has proven an exceptionally stable server distribution.

Recently though, I've been playing around with FreeBSD 5.4 on a vmware box,
and I'm beginning to think it may be the way forward in the long run. Having
observed freebsd-stable at freebsd.org for the last couple of weeks, I've
noticed a worrying (to me) amount of traffic regarding kernel panics,
general instability etc, and I'm now posting this in the hope that I might
obtain perspective on this from some experienced FreeBSD users.

In my time with the Trustix lists, I don't think I came across a serious
kernel issue that wasn't caused by either a lack of a preinstalled driver or
a bad stick of ram. Would you say that this holds true for FreeBSD? I
realise that the FreeBSD user base is a much larger one than the Trustix
user base, and I could be led to believe that the vast majority of people
using 5.4 arent having any problems .. it's just my general impression that
"something's up" with the stability of the 5.4 release. If I were to deploy
a server right now, would a seasoned FreeBSD user use 4.11 or 5.4?

Anyone care to share their thoughts?

Cheers,
David Hogan