A Debian-based gaming OS for handhelds and living-room PCs. Boots straight into EmulationStation with 50+ emulators, a full Linux gaming stack, and a desktop mode one button away.
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A Debian-based gaming OS for handhelds and living-room PCs. Boots straight into EmulationStation with 50+ emulators, a full Linux gaming stack, and a desktop mode one button away.
The OS
HippOS is built on a clean Debian base and ships as a ready-to-run image. No hidden state, no manual setup — flash it and play.
Boots directly into EmulationStation. Every feature is reachable from a gamepad — no keyboard or mouse needed.
Every emulator ships with its own runtime libraries. No dependency conflicts, no missing DLLs, no post-install configuration.
Frontend, emulators, services, and userdata are cleanly separated. Update the OS without touching your saves or configs.
Emulation
Every emulator ships with its runtime libraries included — no dependency conflicts, no missing packages. RetroArch covers additional systems via libretro cores.
Storage & Gaming
Plug in multiple drives and HippOS pools them automatically. The full Linux gaming stack is included for when you need it.
Internal storage and external drives are merged into single views for ROMs, BIOS files, and saves. Add a drive and your library grows automatically.
Your ROM library is shared over Samba. Drop files from any device on your LAN — no SSH needed.
Steam is installed and ready. Bazaar gives you the full Flathub catalogue — browse and install apps without a terminal.
Full Wine stack with Lutris for Windows game compatibility. Winetricks included.
Waydroid runs a full Android container with GAPPS. Android apps appear alongside your emulators and launch with controller input routed correctly.
Hardware & Input
From arcade sticks to handhelds — HippOS has a hotkey daemon, arcade controller remapping, brightness and volume controls, and a desktop mode when you need it.
Remaps IPAC, X-Arcade, and JammaSD arcade controllers to virtual gamepad events via evsieve. Plug in and play.
Press F1 in EmulationStation to drop into a full LXQt desktop. Press it again to return.
Brightness, volume, screenshots, save states, rewind, and power — all mapped and handled by the hippos-hotkeys daemon.
Per-device TDP limits via ryzenadj for Steam Deck, ROG Ally, Legion Go, Ayaneo, and other AMD handhelds. Set it once and forget it.
Switchres-based CRT output with automatic modeline generation. Switch to a CRT and back without manual configuration.
Content
The built-in content store lets you install shader packs, decorative bezels, cheat databases, and ES themes directly from EmulationStation.
Get involved
HippOS is a one-person project with a lot of ground to cover. If you want to help shape it, you're welcome to jump in.
Flash the image on real hardware and report what breaks. Hardware compatibility, emulator launches, controller detection, and first-boot behaviour all need real-world testing across a range of machines.
The stack is Debian, Python, Bash, and a C++ EmulationStation fork. Areas that need the most work: emulator configuration, controller support, the theme, and the update system. Open an issue or PR on GitHub.