Funny, i've never had it crash in Linux. i'm currently running version 1.08 in SuSE 9.2 Professional on an HP Pavillion with an AMD 64 3200.
i'd love to be able to run 1.5.0.4, but it is incredibly difficult for me to install as either an RPM or tar.gz.
Maybe 1.08 is more stable that 1.5.0.4? doesn't suse have an update utility like Apt-get, synaptic or YUM? Maybe you should upgrade to Mepis 6 Final when its released in a week or so? Mepis 6 RC3 was released yesterday you could use that...