> But Linux took over the world and it had a crappy UI.
Linux took over in all the places where a good GUI didn't matter. In ran most of the Unix server software on hardware orders of magnitude cheaper than what was needed to run a commercial Unix. Windows ran on that same cheap hardware but was much more expensive for the same capability.
Despite Sun's marketing push Linux was really the dot in most of the dotcom darlings.
> Linux took over in all the places where a good GUI didn't matter.
like smartphones ;-)
There's a vast gulf between Android and a Linux desktop environment. Android is a Linux kernel with the Android environment on top and is not just some Linux distro like anyone uses on a PC. ChromeOS is very similar.
Android and ChromeOS are still Linux distros, with a UI dedicated for their exact purpose. There have been other distros in the past trying to explore different ways of building a Linux, Gobolinux for example tried to get rid of the traditional POSIX filesystem hierarchy. Sure Android and ChromeOS probably diverged more but that doesn't make them any less linux distros. For a start, termux couldn't exist if android wasn't a Linux distro as no emulation or vm is involved, these are typical linux userland and processes running on android.
FWIW and for good reasons current Android UI is terrible for a desktop usage and ChromeOS is too limited for some people.