Yes, I totally agree with what you are saying. I am going to have a go at a virtual setup.
I have a Pi Zero with three of the 0.96" SPI Colour LCD (160x80) Breakouts wired up to SPI1. It is running Buster, which was the os of choice when I set it up.
Three display weather graphing setup - Discussion / Projects - Pimoroni Buccaneers
I’m wanting to switch to bigger displays, st7789 based. I cloned the card first off. Then tried to run the st7789 installer. I was thinking this would be the easiest way. Once I got the bigger display running I’d just edit my current file.
That got me a no module named st7889 error in Thonny when i ran an example. More messing about got me other errors like I posted above. I’m going to revisit that and take some notes that I can post here.
The next step was to install that same version of Buster on a spare Pi Zero, and try again with a fresh install. I got basically the same as with the cloned card. Nothing I did worked?
That’s when I started this thread. I have setup a virtual setup in the past, distant past, lol. Can you run code in Thonny, in the virtual enviroment?
My first step in my fresh start will be to try and set this up again.
My Pi 400 CPU info display - Discussion / Projects - Pimoroni Buccaneers