I'm currently using the doom-emacs "emacs distro" (https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs), so doom is taking charge of setting up emacs-lsp for me.
One of the issues I have is that I work on multiple disconnected servers, and so I usually end up installing emacs on all of them. Using tramp is an option, but often times I just want a local editor because I find myself needing one in the context I'm working in. But all the servers run slightly different OS versions, etc.
Maybe a mangaged-for-me distribution that does most everything I want without me fiddling with it is the way to go.
I track my config in a git repo, and doom-emacs is rather helpful on what external tools must be installed for various configuration "layers" (like when working with such and such language). When using LSP, it can even proposes to install an appropriate language server in some cases.