Which is exactly why distros have very big repos, iOS has exactly one store and so does android (yeah, yeah amazon, fdroid...; few people install these). So that you never, ever have to care about that.

Simple rule of thumb as a consumer: If it is not in the repo/store/steam then it does not exist. Same for iOS or android by the way: If you need to jailbreak/root for an app, for the average user it might as well not exist.

> On mac, I don't use their appstore, I just get dmg images and get going. Same on windows.

Yeah, same for appimages. And you don't use the mac appstore because it currently is much worse than the comparable linux offering. Yet, both apple and MS are clearly pushing in that direction.

> and now I have to build from source and figure out aclocal dev packages,deps,ugh...

Er, no you don't. If the mac .dmg has those same issues you don't do that, if the windows .exe has those same issues you don't do that. You simply say "that sucks" and go on with your life and install the "fixed" one half a year later. In fact for windows software that seems so much more painful (compared to linux) that I would not even attempt it. It is nice that linux is so much better at that, but still as a user you simply don't do that.