Alas, Gertrude is right for once (not that Windows, with it's DLL hell and Byzantine registry is much of an improvement).
The Linux Standard Base -
Linux Standard Base (LSB) | The Linux Foundation - consortium is trying to standardize installations across distros but progress is slow and the choice of the .rpm format (rather than .deb) is a stumbling block.
Note that compiling your own apps from source (as we all used to) with .configure, .make, .install, .make clean doesn't have these problems but a little knowledge of the system IS required.
On the other hand, most app. installers come in several flavor formats and you just have to choose the appropriate one for your distro - which is not exactly rocket science. And if you stick to the repositories for your distro (default anyway) you'll have no problems.
Gobolinux -
GoboLinux - the alternative Linux distribution - is an interesting attempt to rationalize the traditional *NIX filesystem structure into something more accessible but really only disguises it.
As far as app installations go, the sooner Linux (and Windows) moves over to the "drag-and-drop" OS X model, where apps have their own libraries and depend on the OS only for basic functions, the better. The disk and memory space savings of shared libraries are much less of an issue on today's average box.
So yes.
Mac