A sample journey when trying to install software:
- Try your distros repos, it’s either not there or an older version
- Oh wait, you need to add their repo to your list and try again
- Actually, they don’t have a repo, but you can install this deb/rpm from their site
- Nevermind, it actually needs to be installed with pip to get the latest version
- Or wait, it was actually a rust package and needs cargo
- Well, this package is available as a snap
- Screw it, I’ll just build it from source…. Except the dependencies I need take me through the entire journey again
It’s crazy with a large package like mesa. It uses meson, which requires it be installed via pip, and also needs rust which is best installed via a snap, but then there are dependencies it needs that require multiple paths…
On Windows: find the msi or exe and be done with it.
That’s not a Linux problem, that’s a software problem.
When a version of a distro is cut, they will select the most stable versions of software they bundle. That could well be a year old.
But if the software vendor only wants to package a snap your out of luck getting an rpm/deb, that’s not something a distro will change.
I to find it amazing that when some bit of software wants to make a release they could pick any number of options. The distro package manager is there to make sure all the depends are installed, why pick and option that changes thet