Install something with apt, run into an issue... Oh, the version is ancient, and its fixed in official releases.
Then my options are:
- Fight with apt/.deb packaging and try to roll it forward, maybe breaking my system.
- Figure out how to compile it from source, and manually integrate it until its kinda like the system package.
The weird contradiction is that you would have a better impression if things just stopped there.
E.g. the most current release on windows is broken. You grumble and give up. Heck, for apple stuff you would probably give up before even thinking of trying to fix anything.
As far as users are concerned, linux would be better if it simply said "No!" more often.
The fact that you treat "fighting" and "compiling" as options and then complain about it being tedious already shows a bad image. All other OSs simply say "Nope. Tough luck" and you are happier for it.
No, you just scroll further down on the GitHub releases page (or whatever) and grab an older version that does work, same as every other platform.
For yt-dlp in particular, on a recent x64 or ARM64 kernel you could grab the precompiled Linux binaries and skip the compile the same way, if you wanted. They ship self-contained static linked binaries on Linux.
Maybe I have to install some prerequisites, maybe I need to set nonstandard specific environment variables and paths, maybe I need a specific version of a library, maybe I need to edit a make file...
This is fine for a few programs, but the annoyance really adds up when it happens repeatedly.
I don't mind Ubuntu as much on servers, as stuff is often done through containers or manual downloads anyway, and its not as prone to breakage as desktop software.