I'll give you an example: i have a project in which i have to use this sensor: http://www.calex.co.uk/product/tempe...s/pyrominiusb/

The sensor connects to the pc only via USB and came with a software called "CalexConfig" which is not programmed for ARM architecture.

Now i have a small pc based on raspberry pi, so i have to rewrite the entire software and drivers to be able to communicate with the sensor. But i don't want to reinvent the wheel, i just needed some portable computer that could just work.

I ended up buying another sensor (analog) and connected it to a CAN and then to the portable raspberry pc. But this is another story.

My point is that if you have some specific commercial equipment, and have a small portable pc with an ARM cpu, you simply don't have the possibilities that you have with the x86, since most of the softwares available for that is designed for x86 architecture.