Well look at that, couldn't find an Ubuntu apt repo I trusted -- ppa:thomas-schiex/blender appears to be often suggested but he has an open offer for someone to take over the repo admin, and I've no idea who he is.

I hate fragmenting my install routes though.

Fwiw the Steam install comes up as only 491MB for me. Also I see quite a few "bring back 2.79" comments whilst everywhere else I've looked had only been positive.