> apt works with sudo (this is a locked-down device where I don't have root permission on, why does it need a fake sudo to use apt?)

It's a VM running normal Debian. Inside the VM, you do have root, and that sudo isn't fake.

YMMV, but I've had pretty good luck with just force closing it and launching again when getting errors like that. It doesn't necessarily mean the whole environment is corrupt, even though that is the recovery option that is presented.

It is very unreliable though. I hope Android 17 improves it, as other than the restart issues, I've generally found it to be very functional.