[coldtea]

We had the ability to run packages from a custom "root" prefix for ages in UNIX. If only package management tools all worked together, with the same central store, and respecting this...

There's never a need to mess with root access -- not even to install headers/dev packages. Dev tools and compilers can also be made to look to custom locations. I mean, there's never a need aside from self-imposed limitations our OSes and tooling places upon us.

Nothing inherently complex: just tons of accidental complexity.

Those things are only hard because we never did any coordinated effort to fix them.