This actually looks pretty neat, particularly the integration with Flatpak.

One thing that confused me when I first went to Linux a million years ago was the difference in how you install stuff. With Windows you download an exe file, double click it, next next next finish, and you have your app installed.

With Linux, every distro is slightly different and it's almost never quite as straightforward to people. I think Flatpak has the potential to bring that kind of Windows-style of installation to the masses, and it always kind of annoyed me that Ubuntu doesn't embrace Flatpak outta the box.

I feel the Mac way is preferable, if possible.

Download a package (disk image) - macOS automatically extracts to the desktop. Drag and drop the application from the disk image into the /Applications directory. Done.

This is the way, I believe, most software should be installed. I understand some stuff might need to touch system files and for that, perhaps a wizard makes sense.

Honestly, the fact that to install software you have to go on a site, download an installer, and run it, is one of the reasons why I don't like Windows.

Not only that thing is time consuming and cannot be easily automated, but it's error prone, you are likely to find in the first Google results not the official website of the software but some other site like Softonic that with the software also installs bloatware/malware/toolbars/etc. Of course an expert user can distinguish the official site from a scam, but usually the average computer user can't.

What I like about Linux is just that you type in a terminal (or you use one of the many GUI that exist) `sudo apt install <software name>` and a version of that software, along with its dependencies, it is installed. And not only installed, but packaged, if needed patched, and tested to work along with other software in the distribution. When I install Windows I spend at least 1 hours going to every website of software that I need, download the installer, run the installer, click next, next, next, and repeat. With Linux I can just type in a single command every software that I need, let it run and install it, while I do other things.

And when you need to uninstall a software? On Windows you need the uninstaller, that if it was not created correctly, or created at all, will leave a lot of stuff on the system, files, registry keys, broken links, cache files, etc that you need to remove either manually or with some "cleaner" programs that do more harm than good, for that reason an installation of Windows needs to be formatted every X years cause of the accumulated crap.

From a developer point of view, and I've done many times, writing an installer for Windows, even using open source frameworks like NSIS, is a manual operation that is time consuming, can induce in errors, you need to learn a specific scripting language, etc, while making a package for Ubuntu/Debian (for example) is a simple operation, as simple as put the files of your software in a directory, put in a metadata file, and launch a command to produce the package. Most build systems (automake, cmake) already can create deb packages automatically with commonly used plugins.

It has been years most distros allows you to install apps through tools like Gnome Software or KDE <whichever its name is> which look exactly like an app store regardless if you are using flatpak or regular packages.

An interesting anecdote for you about just how much an exe/dmg equivalent may be the missing link to mass adoption:

My older brother needed a new laptop. A little bit of background about him, he is not technically inclined at all and doesn't want to be. He uses Siri to operate things like alarms and reminders on his iPhone because he doesn't know how to use them. I even offered to show him, he doesn't want to know. This is someone for who an alarm clock app is too technical to get involved in.

So anyway, he needed a new laptop, and I of course had a fair collection of Thinkpads so gave him one of them; loaded up with Fedora (Gnome as the DE). I installed the basics he uses, pretty much just Chrome and the Spotify Desktop app.

He's been using that for a few years now and far less than having difficulty with it, he actually loves it, and says (I suppose mostly due to the speed of it) that he wouldn't want to go back to Windows.

Now obviously Flatpak can install everything he uses there, but I think for most people, that being an option rather than a requirement is scary. Windows doesn't have the option of using .exe, thats just how you install things, like it or not (*yes I know there's winget and whatnot, but you've gotta be pretty in the weeds to even be aware that exists). And if you want to install some non-free software, you can find yourself in a difficult position.

Clearly from my brothers case, Linux is now at a point where anyone can use it, I do think the last missing link is a unified executable/installer, that works across distros (in his mind, he's not using Fedora, he's using linux) and works in the same way as exe and dmg. And not just as another option either (see xkcd 927), but as a core requirement of shipping on Linux, and that's a far more difficult problem to solve.

If you’re gonna install everything as a flatpak, run Debian stable.

On your mobile phone you install software like in linux, by looking it up in the store. Windows is the outlier

You can also download an MSI file ... or execute a Powershell script ... or install via chocolatey ... or install via myget ... or install via winget ... or the Windows Store

Not quite as straight forward as you are suggesting.

Flatpak is great for people who wish they were running Microsoft.

Others can just run a distro for people who believe in open source software.