That is the cost of being able to "apt-get install <foo>" without having to learn details of the packaging system that yet another language community expects ev

That is the cost of being able to "apt-get install <foo>" without having to learn details of the packaging system that yet another language community expects everyone to learn and use, for each <foo> that one wants to install. Remember that dependencies go in multiple directions. Ruby is not necessarily at the top of the stack. I might, for example, want to deploy my Python application stack with puppet. Which requires Ruby. If the choice is "don't use a distribution", then have fun with that. If the choice is "use a distribution, but don't use it for my stuff", then what makes you so special, and how does this scale to every community that wants the same thing?