Depending on the window manager, there are reports[1] of Linux achieving better battery life than OSX. That's not surprising though, as a lightweight WM like i3 is going to use much less resource than OSX's shiny interface.
Which Linux? I'm sure something based on LXDE will outlast everything, while Ubuntu or other Gnome 3-based systems probably won't fare too well.
I expect great performance and battery life improvements with Mir and Unity 8, though, but that won't happen at least until 14.10, and won't be stable until 16.04. By then the Linux drivers should be a lot better and more efficient, too.
Android is not just linux. Linux is just the kernel, and everything else running on it has nothing to do with Linux and that's the majority of Android user software and interface.
It's just like saying "this human and this bacteria are the same, they have a DNA with the same chemical structure !".
My point was not 'call all distributions Linux'. I'm saying that disqualifying Android but keeping Debian is incorrect. Debian, Android, Ubuntu. They are just different Linux distributions.
I think we should stop calling "all the distros" simply "Linux". There is an Ubuntu operating system and a Fedora operating system. They might short most of the code, but you cannot expect to run programs compiled for to run unmodified on the other.
Well, yes, but it's certainly way fairer to put Fedora and Ubuntu under the same umbrella than putting Ubuntu and Android in the same basket. GNU/Linux distros have tons of things in common, and you can often use passthrough systems to run packages from one distro on another (not that I'd recommend that).
For this purpose, "Linux" is still too general even when restricting ourself to traditional GNU/Linux distributions. The answer may depend on which exact services a specific distribution runs by default, as well as kernel configuration.
I'd be interested to see the answer for an out of the box Ubuntu distribution (latest stable version), as well as the answer for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, to cover the "leading brands" for the consumer and business markets.
That's not true, the Android userland is not GNU. It's probably possible to compile some of the GNU tools to work with the bionic libc but it's not the default userland.
I think it's fair to say Android is running on Linux, it's just not GNU/Linux.
