>Toolchains on linux are not clear from dependency hell either - ever install an npm package that needs cmake underneath?

That seems more a property of npm dependency management than linux dependency management.

To play devil's advocate, the reason npm dependency management is so much worse than kernel/os management, is because their scope is much bigger, 100x more package, each package smaller, super deep dependency chains. OS package managers like apt/yum prioritize stability more and have a different process.