I'm ambivalent about distro package repos versus official packages or PPAs. On the one hand, having all the packages one needs in one place can be quite convenient. On the other hand, Debian (and by extension Ubuntu) has rather strong views about how the whole system should fit together, which it imposes on its packages. So the way a piece of software is packaged in Debian and Ubuntu can be quite different from what the upstream developers intended. I'm reminded of this blog post that a Riak developer wrote last year:
The Docker package in Ubuntu trusty (which comes from Debian testing/unstable) is certainly more Debianized than the official package provided by the Docker team. Whereas the official Docker binary is statically linked (and the build process has to go through some contortions to make this work), the Debian/Ubuntu build is dynamically linked. Consequently, the Debian/Ubuntu build has to run a separate "dockerinit" binary inside containers, whereas the official build uses a single binary on both sides. Naturally the official build is tested much more extensively, so I'd recommend using that.
http://vagabond.github.io/rants/2013/06/21/z_packagers-dont-...
and its follow-up:
http://vagabond.github.io/rants/2013/06/21/zz_packaging-and-...
The Docker package in Ubuntu trusty (which comes from Debian testing/unstable) is certainly more Debianized than the official package provided by the Docker team. Whereas the official Docker binary is statically linked (and the build process has to go through some contortions to make this work), the Debian/Ubuntu build is dynamically linked. Consequently, the Debian/Ubuntu build has to run a separate "dockerinit" binary inside containers, whereas the official build uses a single binary on both sides. Naturally the official build is tested much more extensively, so I'd recommend using that.