you can use python with adafruit’s blinka, i got it working and even got a 32x8 MAX7291 to work, blinka basically allows you to use circut python libraries on sbc’s, and the le potato is supported, it relies on libgpiod.
NOTES:
use thonny and you have run it with root access by running “sudo thonny” in terminal and then it will run with root.
the pins in the main 40 pin header are called “board.P[PIN]” so if you want to use pin 22 in your code, you call it (board.P22), but for other headers its (board.[HEADER][PIN]) so pin 5 in the 2J3 header is (board.2J25)