While support varies, it's pretty common for Linux programs to be written with an eye to portability. It's really up to the distro to package things up nicely. Most distros that decide to support ARM have many packages in the repos, just as easy to install as x86. You can search here for packages in the ARM port of Archlinux http://archlinuxarm.org/packages Here's a list of ARM packages from Debian http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/armel/