I tried to install the official steem python lib and it was failing to install

Yes, that's another project I'd like to work on. I work a lot with steem-python. If you want to install it on Windows, I've written a tutorial here.
There is a workaround for Linux, as the crypto-lib is no longer up-to-date. This has also already been described here on steem. If it becomes important for you, you are welcome to contact me.

I have already made some changes to steem-python to make my life easier ;-) If I want to make this officially available, it will probably only be possible via a fork and then I will have to deal with new things (package management etc.) again. I don't have the time for that at the moment. But it's definitely something that needs to be done.

a procedure to print general chain and user info before starting a block explorer? or block producer?

I didn't really mean the code, but that you can see on the screenshot that I'm running the blockchain code in debug mode. So I can run every single command, pause in between and see what the code does at certain points and how.
The code itself is just the entry code for steemd. So nothing spectacular in itself :-)