I have one and it’s very nice.

And language tool is a great option! I use it for many different languages and support for it can be found in many places. Even Thunderbird has first class support for it, these days!

Stable, in this context, only means, that there are no major version jumps. So, you won’t update from, say, version 3.4.9 to 4.0 if that comes out, but instead to 3.4.10, which provides stability, but no new features. It depends a lot on your usage profile, if this is important to you. In that sense, the AUR usually isn’t very stable – but that can be seen as a good thing. If it is significant, typically, you can find pinned versions, too, just as you are still able to download python 2 (not supported for years, but it’s there, stable).

1993 or so with some Slackware CDs, i bought, because I had no internet back then. Took ages to compile, and never got past the black x on the checkered background when I tried to startx. Console worked nicely though and I loved the bash (?) experience with command history and all that. However, no games, very little software, and I didn’t program back than. It took quite some time to be able to use those things productively as a user.