Sounds like you were using Debian or Debian-based distros. It’s pretty much the only one with severely outdated packages. That’s the cost of stability, though not always a strictly necessary one.
As for AUR - you can just build from source on any distro. AUR is only really different if you use AUR helpers, which are not officially supported or recommended. And it’s insecure, as we’ve seen time and time again.
Personally I’m not aware of any program that is available in the AUR, but isn’t available as a .deb or an .rpm. There are probably some, but I’ve never encountered one.
Sounds like you were using Debian or Debian-based distros. It’s pretty much the only one with severely outdated packages. That’s the cost of stability, though not always a strictly necessary one.
As for AUR - you can just build from source on any distro. AUR is only really different if you use AUR helpers, which are not officially supported or recommended. And it’s insecure, as we’ve seen time and time again.
Personally I’m not aware of any program that is available in the AUR, but isn’t available as a .deb or an .rpm. There are probably some, but I’ve never encountered one.