[lubesGordi]

Really not that bad. Almost always, configure make make install. And the main thing is the expectation. We always expect there to be dependencies and we expect to install them by hand and usually they were documented. Any errors would be easily understood (undefined reference or linker error). Now you have these systems that try to do things for you, you expect things to just work, when they don't your expectations are slighted and you get mad. The upside of all this tooling is the same joy you'd get in the 'bad/good old days.'

[lima]

Easy for a user, perhaps, but imagine maintaining it!

[RNCTX]

The FreeBSD or Debian port maintainer maintained it for you.

The seedy underbelly of all of this stuff is that most of the libraries and dependencies and pet projects that somehow became ubiquitous never worked outside of the lone developer's laptop, or the one compsci department's ancient from-scratch installation, etc.

And if you asked him why it didn't work he'd tell you to go fuck yourself.