Ok. One thing I'm worried about is that the tooling is made for hobbyists only. Is there a way to do everything from the commandline with FOSS tools and without installing e.g. the Arduino-IDE?
> Is there a way to do everything from the commandline with FOSS tools and without installing e.g. the Arduino-IDE?
Yes. In fact, the official getting started guide[0] is all command-line based, with an optional chapter later on about using VS Code if you wish.
I have a low volume product in production using the RP2040 and I've never once opened up any sort of GUI for developing the software or programming it.
Since the RP2040 uses external flash you can pre-program the flash chips before they even get soldered on to the board. Other standard methods still work like breaking out the debug pins to some spot on your PCB so you can quickly "pogo flash" it as part of an assembly process.
I'm using the CircuitPython environment. I'm editing in vi and writing directly to the USB storage on the RP2040, which reboots upon write and runs the code. It's no big deal. There's also a virtual UART off that USB connection for light debugging.
