(I am the bento author) Let me first note that I love the apt system - I think it is a great system. And one of the rationale for bento is to make debian (and

(I am the bento author) Let me first note that I love the apt system - I think it is a great system. And one of the rationale for bento is to make debian (and linux) packaging easier. Bento supports the same options as autoconf for integration with systems, and I want to make python build solutions more hackable in general. Nevertheless, apt has several issues: - it does not work on non-apt systems. Simply put, the majority of the scipy community does not use a deb system. - it does not allow for non-root installation, at least in practice - it forces you to follow upstream dev cycles.