Wow, great job atmel.
Your doing what I have preached for a while.
Looking at avrlinux, its coming along.
Now, I think you need to take a "next" step
Right now the additional packages are "appearing" on avrlinux site. Why not going ahead and get "debian" supported. With a minium set of tools, you have a full respository.
Even self hosting compiling is possilble. (smile, yes I know you need a bit more memory, but its ok I know how to do that).
This would allow the amount of software to "explode", and even better, it would allow single line "installation" and update of kernel, installation of applications etc.
even device drivers, and modules can be updated.
this way a software "components" can be built and distributed rapidly, and updates are take care of as well.
for the non-debian guys:
apt-get install gcc
is it
to find the "software"
apt-cache search gcc
an example is ixp425