I keep hearing this. How is it that in practice I can get my desktop to do anything I want, but I can't get my phone to do anything I want?
Android also runs the Linux kernel. However, the tools that allow you 'to do whatever you want' are not what you interact with. Android has its own userspace tools designed by Google. These are what you are familiar with. It used to be possible to use a terminal and sort of interact with an Android device like a desktop Linux computer, but that has slowly been disabled overtime.
https://www.fossmint.com/difference-between-android-and-linu...
>In Conclusion, Android is not a GNU/Linux distro but its Kernel is Linux and since it is the convention that a collection of software put together around the Linux Kernel is referred to as Linux, Android is Linux.
> * Android cannot run any programs that are meant for GNU/Linux distros
also;
Because today, they use LTE.
However that has nothing to do with whether Android is Linux or whether one can make a desktop do whatever they want.