It sounds like what you want is your own repo with either backported packages or packages not available in any Debian repo?
That can (and is) done today - host the compiled packages in a reprepro repo, and add it as a source for apt.
If the package is a backport, apt will upgrade/install it, as it's a higher version than that in the official repo. If the package is from outside debian, apt will updgrade/install it, as it can't find any other package with that name.
I realise you said "prepackaged" but the steps to get a basic reprepro repo setup, and the steps to (e.g.) pull a testing package and build it under stable, are documented numerously online - if the existing options are too complex for the audience you have in mind, I think building (and maintaining) their own packages is not a reality for that audience.
Every time I have to do manual steps for something that is a one-off [which, let us be honest, I'm not going to automatically configure a deb repo since I only re-do it every few years].
Yes, it isn't /hard/ but that doesn't change the fact it consumes time I could spend elsewhere if I had a standard iso from Debian I can just spin up on a VM or a bare metal server.
Atm, my major limiter is how much time I spend building/maintaining environments vs. programming.
Comments
It sounds like what you want is your own repo with either backported packages or packages not available in any Debian repo?
That can (and is) done today - host the compiled packages in a reprepro repo, and add it as a source for apt.
If the package is a backport, apt will upgrade/install it, as it's a higher version than that in the official repo. If the package is from outside debian, apt will updgrade/install it, as it can't find any other package with that name.
I realise you said "prepackaged" but the steps to get a basic reprepro repo setup, and the steps to (e.g.) pull a testing package and build it under stable, are documented numerously online - if the existing options are too complex for the audience you have in mind, I think building (and maintaining) their own packages is not a reality for that audience.
edit: s/of/for/
Thanks and that is a valid opinion.
I think my problem at this point is this:
Every time I have to do manual steps for something that is a one-off [which, let us be honest, I'm not going to automatically configure a deb repo since I only re-do it every few years].
Yes, it isn't /hard/ but that doesn't change the fact it consumes time I could spend elsewhere if I had a standard iso from Debian I can just spin up on a VM or a bare metal server.
Atm, my major limiter is how much time I spend building/maintaining environments vs. programming.