Are there any risks or disadvantages to building software from source, compared to installing a package? Can it mess with my system in any way?
I usually avoid it because I’ve found it to be a faff and often doesn’t work anyway but in a couple of cases it has been necessary.
Using GNU Guix to build can solve the “difficult to install” issue and also help with dependency management, however compilation time can’t be avoided. Advantages remain, however, thanks to package transformation options!