Speaking of portable CHIRP: Using the command-line chirp clone (https://github.com/tylert/chirp.hg/ - same developers as CHIRP?) and a Raspberry Pi I put together a really simple portable CHIRP updater.  I manage my CHIRP image file for my QYT-KT8900 mobile radio on my laptop and save the files to a Dropbox directory.  Then, I shared that specific image file and grabbed the Dropbox share link.  Next I cobbled together a small script to run on the Raspberry Pi (runs out of cron on reboot)  that does a wget of the latest image file from Dropbox and runs the command-line chirp.hg - then shuts down.  No soldering or GPIO work needed.