Android has the NDK now, it can run native code with only tiny headers of java to launch it, plus ART compiles the Java anyway as I understand it. Regular Lin

Android has the NDK now, it can run native code with only tiny headers of java to launch it, plus ART compiles the Java anyway as I understand it. Regular Linux could be tweaked, but I think it would be way easier to start on Android and add all the missing stuff you want for a server, than to start on Linux. Regular Linux still uses a bit more power, and they don't have any kind of container+sandbox that works quite as well, on account of the very tiny userland API that requires containerized things to bring all their own libraries, making them like 800MB a lot of the time, can't really run more than a few apps in 16GB of cheap slow flash like that.