Linux itself is quite stable. Simply install a recent distro and off you go. If you're using a heavy Window Manager you'll get all the convenient configuration applets you need. The real issue, IMO, is the desire to tinker.
OS X is a bit limiting in what you can do with it. I haven't seen anyone with custom window decorations in OS X in a long time. Short of running a software update we aren't capable of tweaking kernel versions and system utilities. If we stick to the same limitations in Linux it's going to be near impossible to break.
Once the Linux tinkering sets in you'll find that you've installed a bleeding edge kernel, changed some repository sources, modified Xorg.conf, ./configure && make && make install'd an obscure library (then (mostly) uninstalled it), and installed Python 2 alongside Python 3 without rebooting for two months. Good luck rebooting at that point ;)
With great power comes a great desire to shoot ourselves in the foot.