Yeah, but the kernel is a low-level module that handles hardware, memory, and processes—it’s not what users interact with directly, so sharing the same kernel doesn’t make it all that similar as you’d think.

What makes Linux feel like ‘Linux’ to users is the stuff on top: the userland—bash, coreutils, package managers, X11/Wayland, etc. Android replaces almost all of that, so even though it uses the Linux kernel, it doesn’t feel like Linux.