Did this not work for Android? I seem to recall that every Android phone manufacturer shipped their own customized Android with different home screens, navigation, widgets, apps, etc. Did not stop consumers from buying the phones. Even today the number of Android phones released with stock Android each year is laughably low.
The way things went with netbooks and nowadays with Android, Jolla, Tizen,... shows what happens when OEMs try to sell Linux distributions.
I can clearly imagine Dell Linux, HP Linux, MS Linux, Huawei Linux, Samsung Linux, .... each with their own "value added" and update policies.