The best approach to distribute software for Ubuntu would be to package it in a .deb installation file. Upon double-clicking, the Software tool will install the file, and it will as such be registered in the package system of the user. Consequently, the user will also be able to easily uninstall it using Software as well.
Offering the software via a repository, a PPA, is even better. This way, users can automatically be made aware of possible updates to the software and allow installation of the updated version with a single click.
Ideal situation, of course, is where your software is included into the community maintained Ubuntu repositories.
This is of course Ubuntu (and debian derivatives) specific, but Ask Ubuntu is specifically dedicated to Ubuntu. Other "Windows-style" options to distribute scripts and software by having users download and execute them, are not recommended but are still easy to achieve. A user does not need to execute a chmod +x
command to make your script executable: the executable bit can be set from any file manager with right-click - Properties. Many file managers would offer to execute the script on double clicking. However, this is changing. To tighten up this unsecure way of working, Gnome Files, for example, no longer launches an executable script on double-click.
.tar
or.7z
).