The best treatment I've read that explains what separates the Linux desktop from others is still here: https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2019/12/04/there-is-no-linu...

In a nutshell, and in my words, the Linux ecosystem consists of a loose collection of related, but fragmented, software, devices, documents and practices. This is fine, as long as you understand what you're dealing with.

Much longer version (I don't have a blog where I can post this):
Consumer devices are more than that though. They are finished, supported products engineered and designed for specific use cases or demographics of users. Consumer devices like these sound great for most people but for some people, it's not what they want. If a consumer device on the market doesn't meet the needs of their application, for example, they need to go elsewhere like commission a custom design or build it themselves. Again, you have to understand what your needs are and what offerings are out there.

You have to be honest about what you're looking at. I have a MacBook and an iPhone. I have certain expectations from these devices, in terms of features and limitations. And a lot of what I expect from these devices is inspired by where they come from: Do they come from a company? What type of company is it? What are the company's values and goals? What does the company think of me, the customer? From the answers to these types of questions I use the devices accordingly. You don't even need to get into the megahertz and gigabytes to form fundamental ideas about what to expect out of a device or computer. You consider the context in which the device orginated.

I also have a ThinkPad running Ubuntu. This is not a consumer device. This does not come from one organization building systems for people like me. It's a collection of tools and I'm responsible for taking those tools and making them work for the application I want and the problems I'm trying to solve. I have to take these kernel versions, drivers, utilities, libraries, layers of software, scripts, configuration files, desktop environments and GUI frameworks to create the system I need for the work I have to do. And even after all that I know the end result is not going to be some slick polished product I'd find on a shelf. But I understand this and I'm prepared to take on the role of part time sys admin, SW dev and researcher and whatever else to get the job done. I also know this wont work for the vast majority of users out there, so I wouldn't bother recommending it.

Maybe one day there will be a company that makes a Linux-based workstation as finished and as much of a "platform" as the Sun Ultra 10 or SGI Indigo2 I used 20 years ago in college. But I'm not holding my breath. Notice I didn't mention Solaris or Irix, fine systems and worthy of mention, but also redundant like saying "my Iphone 11 Pro running iOS". In any case, if such a system did exist, it would likely be a distinct offshoot of the larger Linux ecosystema and only semi-open which would turn off many Linux enthusiats or purists.

IMO, for a proper "platform", the hardware, software, design philosophy, interface, store and support are all integrated by the same company, organization or team with the same objectives and values. If that's what you want, tossing a free Linux distribution on a random laptop made for Windows isn't going to cut it. If that's not what you need and you're willing and able to do some of the work yourself, Linux is great.