Call me old school but I don't see why we can't just keep compiling everything from source. If one package has a dependency on another, just check if the other package is built or refuse to build. What is driving this need for "modern package management" ?
Did a custom kernel under RHEL beta on this Thinkpad x61s core duo 2 laptop. Took 3 hours and used 16Gb of hard drive space. Compiling R takes about 20 minutes. Binaries are quicker.
Exactly. Time constraints and laziness are my two primary reasons for preferring a package manager over source compilation. That's not to say a good sysadmin shouldn't know how to compile from source--you should--but building every package from source and wasting time on a system with a strong package manager almost seems criminal or at least disrespectful to the people paying for that time. Package managers are a time saving device, and these days they're generally very good. If you have a need that isn't met by a modern package manager, I can't help but think it's an exceptionally niche use case.
I used to compile many of my packages from source because of tunings that weren't present in the pre-built packages or pre-built packages that weren't available/out of date (this was probably on FreeBSD some 10+ years ago, although I'm reluctant to include building from ports in this because that is mostly automated and doesn't really count). But when I migrated to Gentoo where builds are automated (and then to Arch) and later experienced the Debian/Ubuntu side of things, I began to appreciate what a colossal waste of time it was to dig through configure options, set flags, etc., much less doing everything else manually. It's just more convenient to allow the platform itself to take care of things or offload worrying about dependencies to the package maintainer who probably knows more about building these packages than I do (or care to).
Again, it's not to disparage the value of building from source (or knowing how), but I have other things I'd rather put my time into, like whining about compiling from source. ;)
I think arch has it right with the rolling release approach containing binary packages that are built with a minimalist philosophy.
Need to tweak a package to include something else or be built a different way? ABS is fantastic because you most likely won't have to change much and the package can still be kept under package management.
I started dabbling with Arch sometime between 2011 and 2012. It's my primary desktop OS because of being both a rolling release distro and being a rolling release distro that distributes packages in binary form. Don't get me wrong, I love Gentoo, but I find my patience waiting for large builds (KDE, X, Firefox, etc) diminishing over time. The AUR also has such a vast number of packages, I can't really think of more than one or two circumstances where something I needed wasn't available (or I was too stupid to know what to search for which was probably the case).
ABS is a godsend for exactly those reasons you cite since you don't have to worry about installing tons of rubbish into the file system for cleanup later (if there is a later). Though, I've found using the ABS SVN repos handy once or twice in the event I needed an older version (and wiped my cache, not realizing ARM was available at that time).
All things considered, Arch is the best of both worlds in terms of a strong, binary package manager and the ability to tweak packages through custom builds. I wouldn't suggest it's a panacea but it comes darn close. I'll risk coming off as an evangelist, but I can't help myself: When I discovered Arch, it made Linux a tremendous joy to use and helped me rediscover the passion I felt when I first discovered Gentoo many years ago. The difference is that this passion has been sustainable. :)
That's been my experience with MacPorts, which does have some binary packages, but much lower coverage than a distribution like Debian, so fallback building from source is common. It can be really annoying when you just want to install some utility and it takes literally 3 or 4 hours to install, because somewhere in the dependency or build-dependency chain is some big and slow-to-compile thing like GTK, X.org, or a newer GCC.
