MikTeX, which is available for Mac and Linux as well as Windows will do on-demand downloading of packages and is probably my recommendation for a new installation.
A lot of the drawbacks to TeX stem from to trying to meet the combined requirements of computing platforms of the 1970s–1990s. All input files effectively live in a single namespace so you cannot have two input files with the same name (the same applies to coding where you have a single namespace for all your commands as well).
It’s mostly a death by a thousand cuts thing.
MikTeX, which is available for Mac and Linux as well as Windows will do on-demand downloading of packages and is probably my recommendation for a new installation.
A lot of the drawbacks to TeX stem from to trying to meet the combined requirements of computing platforms of the 1970s–1990s. All input files effectively live in a single namespace so you cannot have two input files with the same name (the same applies to coding where you have a single namespace for all your commands as well).