I had debian running on the Galileo already sometime ago. Unfortunately, the closed source software I wanted to use at that time used some MMX instructions, which the Quark SoC has not implemented.
But my question was really about the integration of Arduino sketches with the underlying linux (regardless which type), esp. regarding Ethernet features.
For now, I have the impression that the full potential of the Galileo as an Arduino platform (and not a low power intel linux platform, because it can't compete anyway in this domain with ARM boards IMHO) is not enough embraced.
Of course you can do a lot of stuff with system() inside a sketch, but that is not really how Arduino people would expect doing things.
There should be some Galileo API to bring up the Ethernet properly with the stock linux and also offer additional functions.