I wonder if this is due to Linux being harder to work on or because it is possible to fix some errors which would be catastrophic on other OSes?

Back when I used Windows a lot (Windwos XP times...) I also had the "long, scarring evening of frustation" rather often. It was usually solved by a reinstall.

In recent times, the “standard” seems to be smartphones (I use Android). The logic of smartphones it: It works or it dosen't and if it doesn't there is nothing you can do about it. Like ... not supporting some docking station because its network interface is called usb0 rather than eth0 ... no bypass, no solution, buy another docking station.

Of course this is faster than debugging the issue and maybe fixing it for good or maybe waste the evening on it.

Effectively Linux giving you the option to do something about errors doesn't mean the workarounds from other OSes like “reinstall”, “buy a new one”, “use a friend's system because it doesn't work here” are still readily available?