Long story short, I don’t have the resources to keep any PC on for a reasonable time, so I want to make use of all the hardware I can find, I have an old iPad 4th generation lying around, I know anything related to programming becomes annoying when using a touchscreen but it’s what I got, I don’t mind jailbreaking it, or even have a Linux distro that actually works on (I’m fine with compiling stuff myself too)
There are no “real” alternative OS available for apple devices. You can get some IDE “lite” apps like Visual Code, Python Editor, etc. but these a meant as companions to a PC IDE not meant for compiling, linking, testing, etc. You might be able to trade the old iPad for an old laptop you can put a flavor of Linux on.