On Linux, this is commonly accomplished using Red Hat Satellite [1], although many other tools are also available to use instead.
Getting approval to install something like Vim can literally take months of effort and arguing.
[1] https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_satellite/6...
But if you wanted to install it separately on a computer that didn't have it already, then you'd need to get it “approved.”
> maybe the Linux machines weren't in the scans
limitations on what you can install on such machines can be quite draconian, including forbidding anything that IT Security and similar departments may not like.