Comparing UX of Operating Systems

Apple macOS (Userland: Apple macOS/Apple Darwin; Kernel: Apple XNU)

Package Management

• Mac App Store (Installed to /Applications)
• DMG Disk Image Files (Drag and Drop; Installed to /Applications)
• PKG (Install Wizard; Installed to Home or Global /Applications)
• Command Line Programs (Installed to UNIX paths)

Microsoft Windows (Userland: Microsoft Windows; Kernel: Microsoft Windows NT)

Package Management

• Win32 Installers
• MSI Installers
• Standalone EXE
• Windows Store (Installed to WindowsApps)
• Command Line Programs (Installed normally)

openSUSE (Userland: GNU; Kernel: Linux)

Package Management

• Zypper Package Manager
• YaST / KDE Discover / GNOME Software
• Snap Store
• Flatpak
• AppImage (Double Click after enabling permissions)
• Command Line Programs (Installed to UNIX paths)

Pain Points

• Zypper Packages are not always in default repositories
• Zypper requires adding GPG Key of repositories for privacy
• Zypper Packages use shared libraries and can cause dependency conflicts
  • Solution: Flatpaks allow seperate versions of libraries, and also bundling
  • Solution: AppImages pack libraries along with it
• There are many AppImage integration formats (AppImage Launcher being the best imo, but requires systemd init)
• Flatpak is sandboxed while command line apps are not, often causing accessibility issues