TinyCore 12 & piCore 12

[EversteelE]

Hello,

New guy again, trying to simplify things (for my new brain).

RPi hardware aside (ARM chip, firmware, GPIO, additional boards, HATs, etc...) - One could be reasonably confident that a 32-bit TinyCore virtual machine (w/similar RAM, storage) can be used as a dev environment for a Python 3.8 program (media slideshow) meant to be deployed on an RPi?

Create a piCore RPi, making certain all the required extensions - including Python 3.8 are loaded and copy the python (.py) program. 

Simplistically asked, Python is Python no matter which TinyCore Distro one runs it on?  Using an emulator I'd think is overkill (for this limited use case)?

Thanks in advance. I'm slowly teaching myself, so although trial and error works (putting the work in)... it would be great to not go down an obviously wrong path.

[Rich]

Hi EversteelE

... Simplistically asked, Python is Python no matter which TinyCore Distro one runs it on?  ...

Pretty much, but if your program needs to manipulate any hardware you'll need to simulate that somehow.

... Using an emulator I'd think is overkill (for this limited use case)? ...

There is a qemu extension that emulates ARM:
http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/x86/tcz/qemu_arm.tcz.info

[EversteelE]

Rich,

Thank you for the confirmation.  I'm a newbie and will be staying away from hardware tricks (QEMU) for now... I'm just trying to help a local pizzeria with some really simple digital signage. COVID has brought hard times and I like these guys!

I know there are some nifty digital signage solutions out there, but none of them quite fit their budget or my understanding. A bit too capitalist or complicated. And, instead of trying to unravel someone else's thinking... It is probably faster to teach myself Python and write my own fit for purpose applet/utility.

For now, I'm actually using a media player device called Micca Speck G2, just auto-play's images, videos, audio, etc...

I'll keep it "Python is Python" for as long as I can get away with it 

It's all on top of TinyCore/piCore of course!

[curaga]

It may be easier to use some image viewer in slideshow mode, or a media player set to loop over a directory of videos.

[EversteelE]

...media player set to loop over a directory of videos.

Curaga,

Exactly! That's what the Micca Speck G2 is/does. And it's what I'm using for them currently.

I would like to code something similar in Python, use it in the RPi Zero W (replace the Micca) and then add a few minor features.

G Drive access (rclone), configurable delays per image or loop times per video (mako python template), that sort of thing. Simple stuff conceptually but turns into a journey (learning experience) for a relative novice like myself.

I say "relative" novice because I've been a technology professional for nearly 30 years, but always a generalist/manager. Starting to do for myself!

I appreciate everyone's help, truly!