I can setup a Kubernetes cluster, a container registry, a Helm repository, a Helm file and a Dockerfile before you are finished setting up the infrastructure for an Apt repository.
Exactly, an autoscaling cluster of multiple nodes with everything installed in a declarative way with load balancers and service discovery, all ready in about 10 minutes. Wins hands down.
My experience is the opposite - an APT repo is just files on disk behind any webserver, a few of them signed.
Setting up all the infra for publishing APT packages (one place to start: https://jenkins-debian-glue.org ) is far easier than trying to understand all the rest of the things you mention.
I mean, Kubernetes is just some Go binaries; you can have it up and running in literal seconds by installing a Kubernetes distribution like k3s. This is actually what I do personally on a dedicated server; it’s so easy I don’t even bother automating it further. Helm is just another Go binary, you can install it on your machine with cURL and it can connect to your cluster and do what it needs from there. The Docker registry can be run inside your cluster, so you can install it with Helm, and it will benefit from all of the Infra as Code that you get from Kubernetes. And finally, the Helm repo is “just files” but it is less complex than Apt.
I’ve been through the rigmarole for various Linux package managers over the years and I’m sure you could automate a great deal of it, but even if it were as easy as running a bash script (and it’s not,) setting up Kubernetes covers like half this list whereas setting up an Apt repo covers one item in it.
Yeah I don't understand where all this fictional .deb and APT "complexity" is coming from. Everything uses standard abstractions that are decades old at this point..... oh no, you have to make some directories! You have to put a manifest file in the right place! Oh my god, now you have to run a command!
