I don´t have easy debian installed, so my guess is it´s not needed. But if it´s for play anyway, you might install it just to see what´s going on. I installed Arch only because it used Enlightenment. Let´s call it an old love of mine, that I´m happy to see again on my n900. Also I wanted to be able to play around with an Enlightenment module called Illume I had seen a vid on youtube with an n800 running their virtual keyboard. Long story short: it turns out to be already installed with this Archmobile image and it´s not just a virtual keyboard but a complete theme. And a nice one at that.

Conclusion: interested in play? Than by all means, do install Arch and have a play with Enlightenment, fire up the Illume theme, play with the virtual terminal keyboard. Then come back and tell me that keyboard sucks

Have fun

Edit: What´s propaganda without eye candy? So screenshots were added.