This is exactly what most distributions do these days. The debug symbol packages are usually called -dbgsym (Ubuntu, Debian, ...) or -debuginfo (openSUSE, Fedo

This is exactly what most distributions do these days. The debug symbol packages are usually called -dbgsym (Ubuntu, Debian, ...) or -debuginfo (openSUSE, Fedora). This has been done automatically for almost a decade in most distros' packaging systems. GDB usually tells you what are the names of the debug packages you need to install for whatever you are trying to debug. The "distro repository of files that the debugger can download as needed" is called a debuginfod URL. E.g., for Debian : https://debuginfod.debian.net/ https://debuginfod.debian.net/ , openSUSE : https://debuginfod.opensuse.org/ https://debuginfod.opensuse.org/ , etc. This is a more recent development and distros are just starting to turn it on by default. But if enabled you'll basically see GDB start downloading symbol files automatically ala Windows when you run it. It even downloads the source code as it goes. Personally I think the latter is a security risk (since it sends to a server the hash/build-id of everything you try to debug), but I can't argue it's not convenient.