It really depends on how it's setup, and the use-case. The strength of Linux is how customizable it is. Android is oddly a great example - they took a Linux kernel and built a different shell/API on top.
If your requirements are minimal, it wouldn't be hard to run Linux and just setup the apps you'll use. And it'll have the flexibility to do more later if you choose.
And in it's own way, it's easier to do some things since it doesn't have the weird artificial limitations of a mobile OS like Android - you just use whatever tool you need for the current requirement. For example, before Syncthing/Resilio/Foldersync it was a real pain moving files into/out of Android, because it didn't have a native file server (by design). With Linux you just use networking like any desktop OS.