This is not "Linux", it's users who mess around with (and ultimately break) dependencies in order to get the latest version of programs at any cost.
If one uses, say, an Ubuntu version and 3rd party repositories for that version only, they're not going to get any dependency issue, since all the programs will share the same library versions (dependency bugs do happen once in a long while, but they're rare, and they're exceptions).
At this point, I'm also tired of convincing others that linux package management is broken beyond repair. Until you experience my pain, you won't be convinced. I understand many people will never be able to sympathize with my pain but all I can truthfully and honestly say is that I'm a very experienced GNU/linux user, I used all kinds of distros from Ubuntu to Fedora to Arch to Gentoo and, no, it's all a complete and utter mess when it comes to dependency management. I end up spending hours every month fixing broken versions. The sweet spot is using pacman for very basic things, and AppImage for everything else. I don't care about memory efficiency, I want `MuseScore4.appimage` to contain everything about the app, I want it to behave exactly the same every single time I click on it. No, I don't tolerate even the slightest behavior difference, I do not want glibc to upgrade from x.y.z.t to x.y.z.t+1 because it causes insanity when t+1 causes a behavior change in some random software synthesizer I happen to use. I know that this probably doesn't make sense to 99% of users, but maybe I have a special case. Case in point, in the year 2023 while trying to ship a lot of work I'm producing, a single update broke tons of my workflows, and I finally decided that anything not frozen in AppImage is cursed. If it doesn't work you, I respect your patience and expertise, I just hope some people can understand the pain other users go through.
I have a degree in CS, I write code full time, I manage linux containers in my day job, and I still can't manage the mess I have at home in my local Ubuntu/Arch installs. I don't know how people who don't know how to code do, but all I know is that I'm done spending hours at a time on fixing glibc at this point. I just want to work on my hobbies, thank you very much.
EDIT: And before people come here, no, OSX and Windows are even worse. I won't consider using them either.
I use AppImage for the sort of software that won't get packaged (proprietary or obscure) and zypper for pretty much everything else (excepting a few programs I build myself due to reasons.)
The default Debian tools, apt and apt-get (and related tools, like gdebi/aptitude) won't put the system in an inconsistent state, unless the user forces them to do so. Dpkg will do, which I suspect is the tool you're using.
Even when one adds a repository with incompatible package versions (say, the system is Focal and the repository distribution is Mantic), the upgrade will stop before upgrading the packages.
What's happening is that you're forcing broken dependencies, likely to chase the "latest and greatest versions", then complaining that the package manager is broken.
I generally stick to the distro repos exactly because external software is a pain to run, with Flatpak as a fallback for applications not packaged in any repo. More and more third party applications are being compiled statically, though, which has solved a lot of issues for me when it comes to these externally managed programs (though it also causes annoying security issues).
