Is it possible for the development team to create a script that anyone can run which will make a bootable persistent RETRO usb with encryption on everything and the user can just change the /dev/sda for their usb?
(including all the sudo apt installs – ie a complete script run from the appropriate live TinyCore usb – including the dd to burn the usb).
there should be 2 scripts, 1 for RETRO TinyCore for desktops/laptops and 1 for RETRO raspberry pi 5’s – daily driver versions.
This sounds like it would be great project, possibly not beyond your own expertise, but maybe not one that would appeal to the majority of the Tiny Core community. You probably would want to start by downloading the oldest Tiny Core version (currently 5.x) that is still in the repo and see if it fully supports your new hardware. If it doesn't, then try 6.x and so on - you can probably fit them all on a single modestly sized USB stick.
If I were doing it, I'd probably get it all working before worrying about encrypting everything. Those sudo apt installs should be interesting - it would be great if you posted the step-by-step procedures here.
Just as a heads-up, with the appearance of the 17.x alphas a few hours ago, I suspect it won't be too long before the 5.x material gets archived out of the main repo.