This is a huge reason why we have nice code editors nut no Photoshop alternative for example.
Mostly speculation:
I think that's just a time and money issue. Blender was behind Autodesk for a long time, but nowadays it's a real alternative that offers extra features.
Gimp, Krita, and other Adobe alternatives are still in that earlier phase where they're not yet good enough to get funding from studios and companies using it.
For personal use, I previously used system packages, but now I'm installing them through nix home-manager. It's really nice, especially because I've got a list of them now and don't have remember what to install ever again.
It's actually pretty easy if you start with those files, getting to them was a hellish process that took multiple failed attempts though. I'm actually planning on writing a short guide, but didn't find the time yet.
How does it stack up against traditional package management and others like AUR and Nix?
I only used AUR for a few packages (<5 at a time). It's to be avoided and only used if the other options are a massive pain (unless it's an official package).
Then I left Arch and eventually landed on MX. During that time Nix with home-manager has slowly replaced flatpak, and I don't even have it installed anymore. Nix is better in every way, except for ease of use.
Flatpak has great gui integration (for gui tools). You can click through everything, and the updates are unified. It usually works perfectly fine if you just need to install a few programs.
With nix, there's a lot more setup, but there are many benefits. You end up with a list of packages, and that's really useful because you can take a fresh install, install nix and home manager, and then run a single line to reinstall everything. You can rollback updates, pin specific versions, install packages from a repo (if it has a flake.nix with outputs), and also configure them. I'm using the unstable branch, and it's giving me bleeding edge packages on Debian. And there's no risk of outdated system libraries, like with flatpak, because it provides everything.
The home.nix should be automatically generated, and that's where you put all of your packages. I left a few as an example.
NixGL is needed to use openGL (nixGL lutris for example). It works in most cases, but I couldn't get alacritty or kitty to work. There are some ways to have packages automatically use it, but I still haven't tried them out.
Flake allows you to select the correct nix repo (stable/unstable), appropriate home-manager version, and add outside packages like nixgl. It's technically not necessary, but I wouldn't go without it. Here I'm using the unstable repository, check the relevant docs if you want to go with releases instead.
The equivalent of apt update && apt upgrade is nix flake update && home-manager switch --impure. I like cd-ing into the nix dotfile directory (all of the files are in there and symlinked to ~/.config/ locations), but you can also use command line arguments to point to the flake.
nix flake update updates the package definitions to what's in the repo
home-manager switch install them, and also updates any configs it's managing. The --impure is only needed if you're using nixgl (bad build commands depend on system time).
nix-collect-garbage to force a clean up of unused packages
Still... ( gnucobol.sourceforge.io )
COBOL is not obsolete?
GOD DAMMIT STEVEN! NOT AGAIN! ( lemmy.world )
Tablet palm rejection
I own a ThinkPad X1 Tablet (Gen 2) - but the only thing that matters is that it is just a tablet with a touchscreen and Wacom pen....
How do you prefer to install compilers, interpreters, sdks e.t.c
Usually, I prefer manually installing the packages needed for getting started with a new language or technlogy....
What are your thoughts on Flatpak/Flathub? ( flathub.org )
How does it stack up against traditional package management and others like AUR and Nix?