Ask HN: Best IoT Capable Immutable Distros

Are there any good IoT capable distros which support a variety of embedded devices? Ideally any which also support immutable root partitions.

I've been a long time Nerves user. It's a great system however I've been curious about finding a more language generic system for devices where Elixir isn't as good of a fit.

There's options like Balena OS which are handy but cost too much for many IoT solutions or offline devices. I've been looking at SkiffOS as well, but haven't tried it yet.

An ideal IoT distro for me would be something based on BuildRoot or Yocto, but with pre-compiled binary packages which could be bundled into an immutable image.

Another aspect would be support for cross compiling packages, or even Docker images. Docker BuildX uses QEMU to emulate other arches which is a pain. It's 2023 and there doesn't appear to be a clear winner for easy cross compiling outside Buildroot. I exclude Yocto because it's not exactly easy.

Hope to hear your thoughts from others dealing with similar problem spaces!