the issues havee been arround for years , but its down to users choice ,
amongst the main distros , debian ,ubunto , fedora , redhat , suse , to name but a few
some use aptget and some rpm package managment , each also have there own specialist role , debian for example is often chosen for servers where gui and such is less important and console only is needed (minimal installs (low overheads)),
ubunto is more minimal hardware desktop , based arround a debian type install
red hat , fedora and suse , suse beeing more of a desktop version (usualy higher desktop overheads than some), use the rpm package managment system ,
originaly the better but it had a rought road of getting that way , apt-get now does prity much the same today ,
the users though , over the years get used to the quirks and diferences of there chosen distros , as it becomes second nature to them , so easier to fix issues as they go , its also why may dont want to change to another distro ,
the other issue that comes up from time to time is specialist distros , that pop up from time to time , more on hardware than software , but some examples are rasbian , used on rasberry pi hardware , where the distro is configured to use a certain platforms hardware
the more fluid side though is software , distros set up with the goal of providing certain software support , theres been a number of the years , and long term they all seem to fade into obscuraty , as other distros start to support there obscure features and support the software anyway
then theres steam , intended for linux gameing , its downfall like “lindows” a distro set up to look like windows 95 for users back in its day ,is dew to not full support of other linux native apps , most uses want a pc , not a gaming box and a applications box , and dont want to keep dual booting when they want to watch a youtube video on how to solve the game level there playing ,
EA and UE4/5 linux support and packages , done right , the .deb and .rpm packaging can work alone , as long as both are provided , as both do provide the system with a list of dependancies it needs , its then down to the actual distro if those dependancies are actualy in the repositories for the distro , allowing them to be auto installed , its if not the user needs to manualy find the lib /module /app in question and install it themselves manualy
beyond that as the core linux libs /modules / and apps are usualy the same regardeless of the distribution you are using ,
some core backends and such differ , ie pulseaudio>gstreamer>alsa , or systemd usage but are usualy transperant to the apps ,
snaps /flatpack/app image’s do offer a good way of trying to ensure it works accross multiple distros , the issue with that atm is the flatpack type app itself needs to be built from git ,as again no .deb or .rpm for it , theres also the fact that its not always optimised fully for the system its running on , as well as updates and o/s securaty fixes , are not passed on to the app image runtime environment , to me this is usualy a " last resort " option where a lib required usualy has a issue against the one installed
not had to do a reinstall since i set the machine up , and before that on the previous sytem could say 6 years or so , still have a file system crated over 14 years ago on one drive , breakages , ocasionaly theres update fails (package listed but not hit the server ) or bad update package , so roll back the update and wait a few days for the fix to go live , then update again , but runs sweet 99% of the time
lto tape drive support seems to take a couple of days to get onto the system after a distribution update ,frequently , causing it to fail the update , again just wait till there and do the update later , but no real biggies ,
all the distro apps (on the extencive repositories ) work ,and need minimal effort if any to get running , leaving apps like this ( UE5 ) that have no distro support as being the issue as far as building and installing apps go