I tried different:
piCorePlayer 3.02 with piCore 8.0 (no python-setuptools available) and piCorePlayer 2.06 with piCore 7.1. python-setuptools are available and installation quits with ok.
But easy_install could not be found on the system. Neither "$ easy_install", nor "$ python easy_install", nor "$ sudo python easy_install".
So, I tried to compile python-lirc from source. For this Cython is needed and again, its not in the repository. So I downloaded the sources and tried to compile them. This ends with
...
running build_ext
cythoning /home/tc/Cython-0.24.1/Cython/Plex/Scanners.py to /home/tc/Cython-0.24.1/Cython/Plex/Scanners.c
building 'Cython.Plex.Scanners' extension
creating build/temp.linux-armv6l-2.7
creating build/temp.linux-armv6l-2.7/home
creating build/temp.linux-armv6l-2.7/home/tc
creating build/temp.linux-armv6l-2.7/home/tc/Cython-0.24.1
creating build/temp.linux-armv6l-2.7/home/tc/Cython-0.24.1/Cython
creating build/temp.linux-armv6l-2.7/home/tc/Cython-0.24.1/Cython/Plex
gcc -pthread -fno-strict-aliasing -O3 -pipe -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -I/usr/local/include/python2.7 -c /home/tc/Cython-0.24.1/Cython/Plex/Scanners.c -o build/temp.linux-armv6l-2.7/home/tc/Cython-0.24.1/Cython/Plex/Scanners.o
gcc: error trying to exec 'as': execvp: No such file or directory
/home/tc/Cython-0.24.1/Cython/Plex/Scanners.c:4:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1
tc@piCorePlayer:~/Cython-0.24.1$
No idea what I should do now.