Sorry that you've worked your way into problematic edge cases but for everyone else this solves way more problems that it creates.

A world where you no longer have to update dozens of applications one at a time or worse never at all is a very good thing.

This is also a terrific non-SCCM/Windows Store way to provide access to and limit what all can be installed on a Windows box.

The first time I used apt on RH I was like wow, this is great!

It was pure pain and anyone who misses those days is either a masochist or has memory issues.

The problem with how you think is that you expect users to be like you, follow SOPs and all that. This is a help desk nightmare.

AWL already exists in windows (lacks or sucks on Linux) and it can still be bypassed.

The only thing repos create is a walled garden like the apple app store where MS can gate keep who can write code.

Can I write some crappy program and publish it to my friends on a linux distro repo or any appstore? Then how can so many of you on HN that advocate software independence blindly support walled gardens just because it is "Linuxy"?

I have configured manually dozens of servers, and automatically many thousands, with no significant issues. Only when you fight the distro, you’ll end up caught in an edge case. These things are tested automatically 24x7.

I mean on Linux you have the source and everything is debuggable but imagine 10 apps needing 10 versions of the same software. If it comes to this, it will be a fork moment except you can't fork freaking windows!! Stop trying to make windows Linux and Linux windows. They are both great for their uses, this childish war where one or the other needs to be the only way is silly. This silliness is how we have one browser to dictate everyones needs now.

Been using Linux for over a decade and haven't run into any problems from apt/repo's. So I am using what I believe to be a qualified opinion when I say edge case here.

Maybe from a storage perspective but storage is practically free these days. It doesn't even make sense from a time perspective since application updating can be done in the background with no kerfuffle.

There's just no advantage to having shared libraries outside of ensuring that you'll eventually break every application on your machine due to some obscure versioning/corruption/capabilities issue that is nigh-impossible for a layman to solve. I'm with the parent poster - Linux can keep its Package Managers to itself (not to say Windows doesn't have equally stupid features - looking at you, Windows Registry).

If an application or service is using a vulnerable outdated library, I WANT it to break. It’s better to have it broken than have it expose sensitive user data.

The last thing you want in securing a system is for your securitu effort itself to be a security risk (availability)

I think your problem is that you're adding too many third-party repos. The distribution repos can be severely outdated, maybe even buggy, but fortunately most third-party repos are not troublesome. If you have one that is, don't add it, try an alternate installation medium, or consider a different application.

They may be outdated (as in RHEL or Debian Stable) but even old versions get regular bug fixes. And RHEL and Debian and its family pretty much run the world (except the parts written in COBOL running under CICS and z/OS)

App store/package manager gatekept by vendor + random binaries from the internet?

I really don’t know why people use anything else.

Apple App store or the package manager?

Apple does not have a package manager from my understanding and I uses macOS daily. I don't like the approach with the App Store since there are some FOSS that are charging a fee to use their apps in the App Store. I understand it was due to Apple's Developer fee. App Store is not a package manager, it is an application online store in the same vein with Google Play Store & Microsoft Store.

If you are talking about the package manager, then which manager you are referring to? Brew, MacPorts, Nix? I uses Brew daily and only once have to add one repo (using MBA for less than a year) due to external plugin that the app use which it's easy to add in the command line.

This is an example where down vote to disagree isn't useful because instead of discouraging people from expressing opinions you believe are wrong a fruitless endeavor you may actually be discouraging the useful discussion that follows.

It might be useful to the commenter, but to the community it is not.

A collection of resources that are inserted and removed into standard locations plus metadata used to retrieve additional resources many times including some that may be shared between multiple packages including but not limited to dynamically linked libraries and actions to be completed on addition or removal of a package.

and the fundamental concept of a package manager

A tool that provides a standardized set of steps easily add or remove one or more resources to or from a system from a previously configured set of sources without the user needing to manually attend to the details of each installation.

A package manager doesn't inherently impose any sort of constraints on how such packages are retrieved, their requirements met, or their operations actuated. It is the simple mapping between clicking or typing install foo bar in a singular interface and foo and bar being installed on your system. Foo and Bar could be msis individually retrieved from their respective web pages each bundling 100% of the resources needed to run and depending on nothing outside themselves. That is to say the result of running install foo bar could be the EXACT same result as navigating to each respective website, finding the appropriate download, running the installer, answering any questions, disabling any adware or toolbars and waiting for each routine to finish save only that you can't accidentally install malware, you don't need to google the website, its trivially repeatable and suitable to automation.

In that context even if you don't like Linux system package managers it is incorrect to reject package managers in general as they are strictly superior to the alternative of manually retrieving the same packages to the web and in no way impose the things you dislike about Linux system package managers that you are concerned about.

Although you may competently perform that task in fact the act of retrieving and installing software is one of the largest source of infections among users. Removing this source of challenges is as useful as the time saved by being able to run install foo.

But once you step outside of that it can get fun real fast.

And many things now basically do what Apple does anyway and bundle all libraries, etc with each app - Go does this explicitly I think. Space is cheap.

That is subjective. Yes generally the drive storage is cheap. Apple storage in other hands are not cheap at all and charging a premium for it. Looking in MacBook Pro catalog, they are charging $200 for 513 GB SSD to 2 TB for $800. Most of the SSD of that range is in $50 - $150 USD. Drive storage is cheap, Apple storage are not cheap.