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Isn't this true for desktop GNU/Linux too? I mean, last I checked, Debian kFreeBSD would be similar enough to Debian GNU/Linux as long as you don't drop to the console - the equivalent of which would be adb shell.

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No, because you get full access to the OS APIs, so any application is exposed to the implementation specific behaviours of POSIX and OS specific syscalls and paths.

Where in Android, you just get Java and a tiny bit of C and C++.

Check the NDK documentation, Google provides a list of the set of APIs any NDK application is allowed to use.

Since many used to ignore that list, starting with Android 7, any app that uses unauthorised native libraries will get killed.

It's called tivoization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization .

Fork Android OSP and fix that. I'm sure that CyanogenMod will allow me to use native libraries as much as I want.

I am ok with it, as it means less C code exposed to the world.

I'm not sure of numbers but AFAIR both kfreebsd and khurd have 80% of packages in the archive and even getting to this level requires Linux compatibility hacks like procfs support

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