One of the things that make Python so easy and fun to work with is the extensive collection of libraries available from central repositories. Let's install some of the packages we will need for the recipes in this cookbook.
For this recipe, you can work from SSH, serial, or a terminal window inside a VNC session. If you decide to use Geany, it has a convenient window at the bottom with a terminal window so you can test your scripts on the fly.
In the following screenshot, you can see that the bottom half of the screen is a normal terminal window, while the Python script is available for editing above it. When you are doing things such as debugging and optimizing, an environment like this can make it a lot easier:
