My experiments are Pi 4/5 to Zero W/Zero 2. Develop on the fastest machine with the latest Pi OS. Then run a script to delete what I will not use on the target machine. Copy to microSD card for the Zero.
A1 cards are the best option for system boot. The smallest A1 card is 16 GB. There is no need to remove stuff from the disk. Just remove from the boot process so there is no time or memory used to load it.
Leaving options on the card means you can move the card back to a Pi 5/4 for upgrades and testing. Just start the GUI manually. Your whole development environment can go with the application.
Some of my work is on Intel machines with Linux. I experimented with Appimage and it works across Linux for what I want. Both distributions are Debian based. One uses X11 and everything works. The Pi OS has Wayland and NetworkManager creating some problems needing different packages/scripts.
Pretty much everything works except for distribution by email. Uploading and downloading 160 MB packages is easy but is too big for email.
A1 cards are the best option for system boot. The smallest A1 card is 16 GB. There is no need to remove stuff from the disk. Just remove from the boot process so there is no time or memory used to load it.
Leaving options on the card means you can move the card back to a Pi 5/4 for upgrades and testing. Just start the GUI manually. Your whole development environment can go with the application.
Some of my work is on Intel machines with Linux. I experimented with Appimage and it works across Linux for what I want. Both distributions are Debian based. One uses X11 and everything works. The Pi OS has Wayland and NetworkManager creating some problems needing different packages/scripts.
Pretty much everything works except for distribution by email. Uploading and downloading 160 MB packages is easy but is too big for email.
Statistics: Posted by peterlite — Sun Jun 14, 2026 12:35 am
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