I don’t know anything about “hard/brittle” analogies for operating systems. What I do know is that Linux distributions don’t seem to have a coherent strategy for building an operating system with sensible defaults and a consistent design that makes it easy to use for non-technical users.

Linux developers seem to almost-universally believe that if the user doesn’t like it or it doesn’t make sense then the user will fix it themselves either via configuration files or patching the source code. That model works fine for users with a lot of knowledge and time on their hands. In other words, it’s an operating system for hobbyists.

MacOS, for all its faults, is still pretty easy to use (though not even close to the ease of use of Classic Mac OS 9 and earlier).