I know developers are used to setting stuff up in local environments, but that guide's about 20 steps too many. It would be nice to have an apt package built that encapsulates the operations in that script.

And is it really necessary to install Git just to download some software? The devs should make a tarball out of the 0.3.0 tag and follow standard packaging conventions. /opt/ is for 3rd-party/proprietary stuff or "really big crap" like KDE/Gnome (if you're on certain distros).

If the generation gap between modern developers and Linux package-managing folk is too big, i'll gladly write up some guides that explain how (and why) to package software instead of slapdash local installs.

Yes that would be great. I've used debian for over a decade but I still don't know how I would turn my python packages or other programs into debs.