Hi,

I've been using Debian and Debian derived distributions for quite some
time, and understand enough of how packages work to get by day to day
But as new packaging formats like snap/flatpack and approaches like
immutable distros have been receiving more attention recently,
questions about the design decisions behind the apt/deb package system
have been occurring to me, and I'm really just not sure where to ask
them. If there's a better forum, please let me know.

My main profession is as a Java developer, and the philosophy behind
the packaging/repository systems(gradle/maven etc..) is essentially to
store software in something in a hirearchy like
${group}/${app}/${version}/, and it's therefore possible to have
different versions of the same package installed side by side, and
referenced by various downstream packages which can refer to their
dependencies by including a listing of their 'dependency coordinates'.

(Debian) Linux by contrast always has an idea of 'the' installed
version of a package, also a complicated directory tree that packages
could install themselves into in various ways, as well as complicated
pre and post triggers. But like java packages, they also contain [a
more flexible] idea of what their own dependencies are.

Now, my question is why is it that one would not be able to adopt some
system convention allowing various versions of the same package to be
installed side by side, and therefore avoid a lot of the 'dependency
hell' situations that users sometimes get themselves into? It seems to
me like a much more natural evolution of application packaging than the
current container driven trends.

Are there a lot of technical complications with respect to how the
traditional file hierarchy would have to change? Is there some concern
about somehow exchanging 'install time' issues for 'run time' issues?
Is it because the mechanics of how packages are written/installed are unconducive to these types of changes? Are there complication relating
to how pre/post triggers are written? Is it a matter of not attempting
to fix 'what ain't broke'?

Or is there a more philosophical objection about how a cohesive
software system should be designed, and how best to achieve a measure
of compatibility/compactness across a broad range of packages?

Thanks,

Masoud

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.6
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Hello,

Now, my question is why is it that one would not be able to adopt some
system convention allowing various versions of the same package to be installed side by side,

I think nixos and guix allow this.

Sveta

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.6
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Jan 29, 2026, masoudamri@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,

[...]
Now, my question is why is it that one would not be able to adopt some
system convention allowing various versions of the same package to be installed side by side, and therefore avoid a lot of the 'dependency
hell' situations that users sometimes get themselves into? It seems to
me like a much more natural evolution of application packaging than the current container driven trends.

You just described update-alternatives(1)
Dependency hell is more the case that "X relies on Y, but Z is
installed" (because A relied on Z, and you're not asking to uninstall
A); or a worse mess that almost goes in circles.
Outside of doing bad things (or compiling questionable things from
source), I haven't really gotten into Dependency Hell in nearly 2
decades.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.6
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

masoudamri@gmail.com wrote:

My main profession is as a Java developer, and the philosophy behind
the packaging/repository systems(gradle/maven etc..) is essentially to
store software in something in a hirearchy like
${group}/${app}/${version}/, and it's therefore possible to have
different versions of the same package installed side by side, and
referenced by various downstream packages which can refer to their dependencies by including a listing of their 'dependency coordinates'.

You are thinking about a language package manager. Apt is an
operating system package manager. They have different
requirements.

For most of your program's lifecycle, you are pulling in various
libraries, upgrading them, going back, making sure that things are
working. Then you compile your program into a JAR; you are setting up
a final version of the program to ship. It has all the
dependencies baked in. Your package manager operated before the
baking process.

When a Debian user asks for the installation of a package, there
is a bunch of metadata about dependencies. Those dependencies
are also packages, and they get pulled in *at that time*, and
are expected to exist thereafter. However, it is reasonable to
upgrade those dependencies -- openssl has a vulnerability, libc
has a bug fix -- often without recompiling or relinking the
program(s) which call them.

The baking process happens at runtime, and it's called dynamic
linking.

Now, my question is why is it that one would not be able to adopt some
system convention allowing various versions of the same package to be installed side by side

You could do that. Debian actually has one: if you install
libfoo2 and libfoo3, the package manager considers them
independently. That means that a program which needs libfoo3 can
exist and run at the same time as one which needs libfoo2.

That also means that libfoo2 2.03 can be upgraded to
libfoo2 2.05, without changing anything about libfoo3.

The programs need to declare specific dependencies on libfoo2 or
libfoo3.

But if the packaging is libfoo, version 2.03, 2.05, 3.01... then
they cannot be installed side-by-side, because which one is the
real libfoo?

, and therefore avoid a lot of the 'dependency
hell' situations that users sometimes get themselves into?

That's not going to solve it. Dependency hell comes about when
two packages declare that they cannot coexist with each other.
This usually means that they do the same job, but in different
ways.

This will always require a human's intervention, because the
human is the part of the system which wants to do something.

Or is there a more philosophical objection about how a cohesive
software system should be designed, and how best to achieve a measure
of compatibility/compactness across a broad range of packages?

Those also exist.


--
https://randomstring.org/~dsr/eula.html is hereby incorporated by reference.
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--- PyGate Linux v1.5.6
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

"Svetlana Tkachenko" <svetlana@members.fsf.org> writes:

Hello,

Now, my question is why is it that one would not be able to adopt some
system convention allowing various versions of the same package to be
installed side by side,

I think nixos and guix allow this.

Sveta

There is also the somewhat older approach of so-called 'environment modules', which is widely used on HPC clusters. The original version is written in Tcl (https://envmodules.io/), a more recent one, Lmod, is written in Lua (https://lmod.readthedocs.io).

With this approach multiple versions of a piece of software can be installed side-by-side. So this is the list of versions of Python we currently have installed:

$ module -r av ^Python/

---------------------- /software/easybuild/modules/all -----------------------
Python/2.7.14-GCCcore-6.4.0-bare Python/3.7.2-GCCcore-8.2.0
Python/2.7.14-intel-2018a Python/3.7.4-GCCcore-8.3.0
Python/2.7.15-foss-2018b Python/3.8.2-GCCcore-9.3.0
Python/2.7.15-GCCcore-7.3.0-bare Python/3.8.6-GCCcore-10.2.0
Python/2.7.15-GCCcore-8.2.0 Python/3.9.5-GCCcore-10.3.0-bare
Python/2.7.15-intel-2018b Python/3.9.5-GCCcore-10.3.0
Python/2.7.16-GCCcore-8.3.0 Python/3.9.6-GCCcore-11.2.0-bare
Python/2.7.18-GCCcore-9.3.0 Python/3.9.6-GCCcore-11.2.0
Python/2.7.18-GCCcore-10.2.0 Python/3.10.4-GCCcore-11.3.0-bare
Python/2.7.18-GCCcore-10.3.0-bare Python/3.10.4-GCCcore-11.3.0
Python/2.7.18-GCCcore-11.2.0-bare Python/3.10.8-GCCcore-12.2.0-bare
Python/3.6.4-foss-2018a Python/3.10.8-GCCcore-12.2.0
Python/3.6.4-intel-2018a Python/3.11.3-GCCcore-12.3.0
Python/3.6.6-foss-2018b Python/3.11.5-GCCcore-13.2.0
Python/3.6.6-fosscuda-2018b Python/3.12.3-GCCcore-13.3.0
Python/3.6.6-intel-2018b Python/3.13.5-GCCcore-14.3.0 (D)

Things can get a bit complicated, as one generally has to manage different versions of the dependencies, but there is also software for that, such as EasyBuild (https://easybuild.io/), which is primarily for actually building software, but does all the dependency management to and works with module environments.

Cheers,

Loris

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This signature is currently under constuction.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.6
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, Jan 29, 2026 at 04:06:54PM -0500, masoudamri@gmail.com wrote: [packaging systems, Debian vs. Maven]
Debian is a binary distribution. Maven (and npm, which resembles
it somewhat) is a source distribution (for Java and, more, for
javascript, you don't "see" it thanks to the mantra "compile once,
run everywhere -- a friend of mine spelled that, back then, tongue
in cheek "compile once, test everywhere, oh, well).
At the end, it runs down to where your trust envelope is.
Debian is a binary distribution. Packages are centrally managed.
Some packages (those on which many others depend on) tend to
come in one version (think libc) -- it's the packager's very job
to make sure their package plays well with it.
To see the advantages of such an approach, just imagine a security
flaw sneaking into one of those basic packages: publishing a fix
to that one fixes it for all of the distro's users (for a concrete
example, think the XZ utils backdoor [1]).
The Maven (or npm, for that) model pushes the responsibility to
the perifery, the ones taking the brunt are not experienced
packagers, but some small website outfits out there not having
the time or resources to even enumerate (let alone assess) the
mountain of packages they're sitting on (been there, done that).
Therefore, in this case, a malicious event tends to be more
"interesting". Think shai-hulud, for example [2a], [2b]
(thousands of repos affected, a ton of secrets exfiltrated),
which also managed to find a new life in Mave [3].
Now I'm not writing this as a simplitic "binary distribution
good, source distribution bad" rant: I just wanted to show
one of the many facets of this design space. Source distros
do have their advantages, too.
My point is rather that it's not a technical problem, but a
social one. You pick and choose the tech which fits the
social structure you (want to) have, not the other way
around.
Cheers
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xz_backdoor
[2a] https://thehackernews.com/2025/11/second-sha1-hulud-wave-affects-25000.html
[2b] https://thehackernews.com/2025/09/40-npm-packages-compromised-in-supply.html
[2c] https://thehackernews.com/2025/11/shai-hulud-v2-campaign-spreads-from-npm.html
--
t


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.6
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)