I agree, if you don't know what you are doing then you can screw things up pretty good by building things from source. Although harder, you can still also scre

I agree, if you don't know what you are doing then you can screw things up pretty good by building things from source. Although harder, you can still also screw things up installing software from OS vendors. Both approaches require care. I've found build/deployment automation and documentation to be the things that address most of the problems highlighted here. There's a lot of cool software out there in this area that helps. Building task specific software from source is definitely worth it, you've just got to know what you are doing.