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Genuinely interesting: what's the benefit of using a non-Android OS if you end up running Android apps anyway?

Instead of going all-in on Android, you get to choose the apps that are most important to you and otherwise minimize your exposure to the privacy-grab. For example, if you'd really prefer to avoid using Android but do want mobile banking on your phone, just get the app for that and skip everything else.

Personally I like having Linux on the phone a lot for other reasons as well. For example, last summer I was backpacking in North America for several weeks. At some point I realized that I'd really hate to lose the photos on the memory card of my DSLR. Instead of getting another card and hiding the first one somewhere "theft-proof" in my belongings, I just went to BestBuy, got a memory card reader, plugged that into the phone, mounted the memory card filesystem and rsynced the files home over my vpn - which is exactly what I would have done if I had my laptop with me. Sure, I probably could have figured out a way to achieve something similar on Android as well, but having all the familiar tools available made it so much easier.

You could probably have done something similar using Android with Termux, yes. I use rsync in Termux to move files to or from my phone all the time. Android is a complete mess when it comes to app permissions and the file system, so I would not dare to guess if it would be possible to access a USB drive from within Termux or not.

I preferred SailfishOS on my Jolla Phone (and my Jolla Tablet) as the experience is much better with how you can access files on the file system etc. But for various reasons (including a cracked phone screen) I went back to Android several years ago.

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