> On a Mac, these kinds of errors are unusual. On Linux, build errors like that are normal.
I think it's the opposite, and the errors that you encountered are a good example of why, since they all appear to be Mac/Homebrew-specific.
> On my Mac, I tried to install ffmpeg with rubberband support. When trying to compile it, brew gave cryptic error messages and eventually failed.
The FFmpeg in my distro's packages (OpenSUSE) and in Ubuntu's packages comes with rubberband already enabled. They are binary packages - no compilation needed, and it all just works. When I last used Homebrew I was surprised at how often it needed to compile things. For Linux users, compilation is rare.
> For something else, I tried installing qemu, also using brew. There were a load of errors telling me I'm using an outdated OS and should feel bad about it, and again, it failed after 156 minutes with some libiconv error that I don't even totally understand, never mind know how to resolve.
libiconv is not a thing in GNU/Linux. In Linux, iconv() is part of libc. libiconv is only used to port software to platforms which don't have iconv, or have an iconv() which is deficient in some way. Also, again, my distro and Ubuntu both include a binary package for qemu - no compilation needed.
> Whether it's brew, apt-get, yum, pip, npm, or whatever other package manager you wish for - recompiling all my software is extremely slow, and by the time it's finished I've already moved on to something else. [...] Requiring this for every software package on Linux is what's pushing me away from the platform.
I think you have the wrong idea about apt-get and package managers on Linux. Most distro package managers do not compile your software. Almost all the popular distros have binary package managers, which means compilation errors (on your machine) are not possible. Ironically, Homebrew (and Cygwin) users spend a lot more time compiling than Linux users do, so don't let your experience with Homebrew colour your opinion of Linux. They are not alike.
I think it's the opposite, and the errors that you encountered are a good example of why, since they all appear to be Mac/Homebrew-specific.
> On my Mac, I tried to install ffmpeg with rubberband support. When trying to compile it, brew gave cryptic error messages and eventually failed.
The FFmpeg in my distro's packages (OpenSUSE) and in Ubuntu's packages comes with rubberband already enabled. They are binary packages - no compilation needed, and it all just works. When I last used Homebrew I was surprised at how often it needed to compile things. For Linux users, compilation is rare.
> For something else, I tried installing qemu, also using brew. There were a load of errors telling me I'm using an outdated OS and should feel bad about it, and again, it failed after 156 minutes with some libiconv error that I don't even totally understand, never mind know how to resolve.
libiconv is not a thing in GNU/Linux. In Linux, iconv() is part of libc. libiconv is only used to port software to platforms which don't have iconv, or have an iconv() which is deficient in some way. Also, again, my distro and Ubuntu both include a binary package for qemu - no compilation needed.
> Whether it's brew, apt-get, yum, pip, npm, or whatever other package manager you wish for - recompiling all my software is extremely slow, and by the time it's finished I've already moved on to something else. [...] Requiring this for every software package on Linux is what's pushing me away from the platform.
I think you have the wrong idea about apt-get and package managers on Linux. Most distro package managers do not compile your software. Almost all the popular distros have binary package managers, which means compilation errors (on your machine) are not possible. Ironically, Homebrew (and Cygwin) users spend a lot more time compiling than Linux users do, so don't let your experience with Homebrew colour your opinion of Linux. They are not alike.