These are never too far behind and should let you keep fairly up to date without any compiling …at least a short term solution until you wrestle things into submission… 
Hi Bruce! First, many thanks for the videos you created about Darktable, I learned a lot from them.
Second, regarding Linux distros suitable for people who just want to get things done and not tinker with the OS itself. I have some strong opinions on them, please don’t hate me
My background - I’m a mostly C/C++ developer for too many years to count. I stopped using Windows in 2000 after my computer was silently infected by a virus and converted to storage of some shady files. Another issue was the official Nikon processing software written in C++ and .Net decided to irreversible corrupt my .nef files. I decided to switch completely to Open Source.
During all these years I tried all major Linux distros plus FreeBSD (which was supposed to be more stable). My requirements are somewhat strict - OS should be able run everything I need without any issues. Any serious problem and the current OS gets replaced by something else. And I need a lot: general desktop software, photography, multimedia, C/C++ and other development tools, some server stuff (NFS, ftp, HTTP) and all of that must be fresh versions, not something ancient. So far I found out:
FreeBSD - excellent for particular server installations, not so convenient for desktop (but doable), lacks support for latest hardware. I keep it installed on spare SSD for nostalgic reasons and check out their latest developments.
Ubuntu - was great at one point when they pushed for Linux desktop. But I never liked that the packages are fresh only at the moment of release. Later on they will get only security updates. To have latest versions you need to either build from source or enable some thirdparty PPA. And their recent move to use snaps everywhere leads to slowness and weird little problems.
Debian: packages were ancient, something basic like networking did work well.
Arch Linux and everything based on it, including Manjaro: they move fast and break things. Excellent distro for real geeks who enjoy challenges of fixing broken software. Not recommended for normal people or if you need any decent stability. In my case I tried to use it for numerical simulations. Under intense load Arch would always crash in a few hours. Ubuntu wouldn’t crash but enter a strange half-broken state which required reboot. I couldn’t make Fedora crash even once.
Suse - did not like their heavy and slow installer. Their center for configuration of everything was so anti-Unix in style. And then the whole system crashed by itself without me doing anything special.
So eventually I settled down on Fedora. It has everything I need - fresh packages, great support for latest hardware, excellent stability. For some strange reason it is not that popular on desktop. Maybe it is because they install by default this brain-damaged Gnome which forces mobile style desktop on regular laptops and workstations. Luckily it is quite easy to install something else: KDE, Cinnamon, Mate, XFCE, etc. Personally I use XFCE - it is simple, stable, fast, gets the work done. The only caveat with Fedora - never install (or upgrade to) a new distro version just when it is released. It is better to wait a month or two until all initial bugs are found and fixed.
So now I have 2 workstations, a few laptops, 3 Home Theater computers - all running Fedora almost without any hiccups. I regularly build Darktable, RawTherapee and ART from source code, sometimes switching git branches/repos - no problems at all. If I’m bored I have a few spare SSDs where I have Ubuntu and FreeBSD installed. I switch the system SSD in my second workstation with one of the spares to check out what’s new. But I always return back to Fedora.
The above is my personal experience only. I’m sure some people will swear by distros that I rejected for my own usage, that’s perfectly fine.
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Ubuntu: you can get rid of snap for good. I do not have it installed. With a release every 6 months, I don’t really need PPAs (adding library updates from random PPAs leads to dependency issues, I keep them at a minimum).
Of course that does not mean Fedora is not great.
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I must be really dumb, because I cannot work out how to download/install the appimage of the nightly build.
What am I missing?
I think you need a Github account.
Once you download it, make it executable, and it will be ready to run.
I had an account, and I was logged in, but apparently the link g-man posted earlier didn’t take me to the correct page! But I eventually found the page I needed.
Just downloaded tonight’s build, make it executable, and yes, it runs.
Thank you to all who have assisted. I know how frustrating it can be when you know something technical and you are bombarded with questions from someone who has no idea… believe me, I HAVE been on the other side of this scenario, so it is not lost on me! Many thanks.
Now, off to explore…
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tankist02, thank you for the kind words!
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I run Manjaro/Arch/XFCE.
From the Manjaro software install page add the Arch repositories.
Add ‘base-devel’ packege
Search for darktable and add the 4 needed dt packages.
darktable will then install an update as needed with the nightly builds. All without pain!!
If you want the OpenCl packages (there are 3) I can give them to you.
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