Making the Case for a Modern Synaptic-Style Package Manager on Linux

Desktop Linux is in a better place than it used to be. App stores have made software discovery much simpler, and it’s become normal to install an app without even needing to know what a repository is.

We can grab almost any app in seconds (or minutes, depending on your connection), but that convenience comes with a trade-off. We’ve lost some of the fine-grained control that used to be standard on the Linux desktop.