Is there any easy way to get GNU build tools on Android? If not... why not? With the growing number of Android devices in all sorts of different form factors (dev boards like Raspberry Pi/ODroid, Android-on-a-stick, etc), it seems like it would be great to be able to actually do development work on Android and not just simply for Android. For example, having the standard Linux build tools available would let me easily run a server.
In case you only need a cross compiling environment with the standard Linux build tools there is an easy solution already included in the Android-NDK:

In the subdirectory build/tools of the NDK you find a scrip named make-standalone-toolchain.sh.
using the parameter --install-dir= you can specify a path where to create the standalone-toolkit - for example as shown inthis call:

build/tools/make-standalone-toolchain.sh --install-dir=/tmp/android-stanalone-toolchain


Adding the bin directory of the created toolkit allows you to use the standard build process for compiling projects. Just make sure that you call the configure script properly for cross compiling:

./configure  --target=arm-linux-androideabi  --host=arm-linux-androideabi


Afterwards you can simply call make and then pray that the application you want to compile is compatible with ARM/Android platform.