> Who are you, package manager, to decide that I shouldn't be able to use different versions of the same package? That's one of main point of a distribution, r

> Who are you, package manager, to decide that I shouldn't be able to use different versions of the same package? That's one of main point of a distribution, rather that simply throwing software on a hard drive. The maintainers have to work hard to guarantee that a specific set of packages and version work well together. Well enough for most users to deploy 99% of the packages without surprises. And then backport security updates (often faster than upstream), for 3 years, often 5. And various companies provide longer term updates and maintenance. Oh, and provide license checking and vetting. Turns out that it's a lot of work and no serious distribution would consider supporting multiple version of packages while guaranteeing the same level of quality. > Do you know more about my context than I do? Given your statements about distributions... most likely yes.