Unsure if this is the place to ask or not but figured it was closest to it.
Basically I am looking to make an AIO retro gaming PC. Main goal is to have one simple box hooked up to the TV so my friends and I can game without having to swap discs and consoles all the time. Would probably use mostly DS3 (or 4?) controllers hooked up with USB or via BT.
I know lemmy doesn’t much care about piracy but this is all just to play games/consoles we legally own. Would include PS1-3, Nintendo, SNES, N64, Gamecube (think that is all we have).
I think https://batocera.org/ has been mentioned, Lakka (maybe this is more for pis?), and EmuDeck has been mentioned. Basically looking for the easiest distro to throw on a PC with a nice UI (can be launched via kb/mouse, all the same to me) that has the emulators built in and just needs the ROMs.
I’ve tried a few distros now, and none have been so easy as Pop!_OS. I’ve switched back to Windows before, but not since this last time on Pop!_OS. It’s just so simple to use out of the box, they like to use flatpaks (which I LOVE), and the UI is so clean and intuitive that it would be hard for me to go back for that reason alone. Automatic. Fucking. Window. Tiling.
In regards to gaming, System76 puts in so much work on their end to make Pop!_OS a gaming beast. They even have a separate download of their distro specifically tweaked for compatibility with Nvidia cards, which is huge! I love using the terminal, but the Pop! Shop app that they inclue is such an intuitive way to find new apps (that are curated, specifically for ease of use with the distro) and easily check if there’s a flatpak version.
TL;DR Pop!_OS, hands down