There are apps made for linux that don’t work with android, and there are apps made for android that don’t work with linux. That’s enough for me to consider them different
Also android just doesn’t use the basic mainline kernel which is what most people want when they say “linux phone”
Current nixos user and it seems to me to have stabilized a good bit. I know that the nixos foundation held their first elections for the steering community. Also they recently released their new stable 24.11 version that seemed to go smoothly.
It is not back to where it was in terms of dev trust but there is good progress, and my software still gets updated so I have stuck with it