Yes, and distributions arose to solve the problem that plagued early Linux: how to have a set of applications and libraries with consistent and mutually compati

Yes, and distributions arose to solve the problem that plagued early Linux: how to have a set of applications and libraries with consistent and mutually compatible versions of everything. If you're compiling everything yourself, building it so it all works once is an achievement. Keeping on top of as many moving targets as there are binaries in the system so that everything keeps working over time is not practical once the number of moving parts gets high enough. Distros solve a real problem, but the trade-off is that some parts of the system must exist to serve itself.