The Python Dependencies story on SystemCore

[jlmcmchl]

I recently started down the path of compiling https://github.com/SleipnirGroup/Sleipnir/ for Systemcore, and noticed that a lot of utilities that are useful, if not required for python development are not yet included in the image. If on-bot development is in the works for java & python, then users will need these utilities required to build and install dependencies outside the vendordep framework.

Some things I noticed:

• git is present, but https is not a supported protocol for remote repositories. Only ssh is supported.
• pip is not present

Without pip in particular, python is limited to the dependencies in the base image and vendordeps for on-controller development. It would be preferable to enable repo cloning without SSH keys and to include pip from an accessibility standpoint.

[virtuald]

I just got my systemcore HW this week, but won't be starting on RobotPy development for systemcore until next week due to travel. It's likely there will be a lot of things like this -- thanks for this initial list.

[virtuald]

I don't think we'd probably explicitly support building native python packages on systemcore by default though? Just wheels from pypi et al.

[auscompgeek]

The SystemCore image doesn't ship the C toolchain, so the only sdists that could possibly be installed must be pure-Python. So yes, I agree for any native dependencies from PyPI they'd have to be manylinux aarch64 wheels.

[auscompgeek]

I expect we'll be using a virtual environment with a Python build from https://github.com/astral-sh/python-build-standalone, rather than using the system Python 3.11.

The python-build-standalone Linux aarch64 builds now have PGO and BOLT optimisations enabled. I have Python 3.13 running on my SystemCore right now.

[virtuald]

RobotPy 2027.0.0a2 is now available.