For mobile devices, the difference is that Android kernels actually work, and upstream Linux kernels don’t. Projects like postmarketOS are working on mainlining more Android hardware, but you probably won’t get all of your hardware to work if you grab Linux 6.8 and try to run it on your phone.
The weird kernel situation is one of the reasons you get Android phones with the very latest version of Android and a kernel stuck at something like Linux 4.14 or even lower. Upgrading Android isn’t hard, upgrading the kernel would basically require Qualcom and every other company that delivered drivers to patch their code for you.
Android kernels are forks of Linux kernels.
For mobile devices, the difference is that Android kernels actually work, and upstream Linux kernels don’t. Projects like postmarketOS are working on mainlining more Android hardware, but you probably won’t get all of your hardware to work if you grab Linux 6.8 and try to run it on your phone.
The weird kernel situation is one of the reasons you get Android phones with the very latest version of Android and a kernel stuck at something like Linux 4.14 or even lower. Upgrading Android isn’t hard, upgrading the kernel would basically require Qualcom and every other company that delivered drivers to patch their code for you.