HippOS is a console-style gaming OS for handhelds and living-room PCs. The goal is simple: boot into a gaming-first experience where Linux is the platform underneath, not the product the user has to manage.

Flash the image, plug in a controller, and you're in EmulationStation. Your ROMs, saves, BIOS files, and configs all live on a separate data partition — updating the OS never touches them.

Design principles

• Frontend-first: boot straight into a console-like experience, no desktop to navigate.
• Controller-first: normal use should not require a keyboard or mouse.
• Gaming-first: launching, configuring, and preserving games drives every decision.
• Modular: emulators, system services, and userdata are cleanly separated and independently updatable.

HippOS ships 50+ standalone emulators alongside RetroArch, the full Linux gaming stack (Steam, Wine, Lutris, Flatpak), and a desktop mode for when you need a full Linux environment.

What's included

• Emulators: Dolphin, RPCS3, PCSX2, DuckStation, Vita3K, Ryujinx, Azahar, PPSSPP, xemu, Xenia, Supermodel, ScummVM, MAME, FBNeo, and many more — all compiled from source.
• Gaming stack: Steam, Wine, Lutris, and Flatpak for PC gaming alongside emulation.
• Unified storage: ROMs, saves, and BIOS files can live on any attached drive. mergerfs pools them into a single library EmulationStation sees as one collection.
• Desktop mode: A full XFCE environment is one menu entry away for anything that needs a real desktop.

Status

HippOS is under active development. The build system, emulator pipeline, and session infrastructure are functional. Image building, QEMU-based testing, and emulator compilation are all working. Expect rough edges.

Get involved

HippOS is a one-person project at the moment and there's a lot of ground to cover. If any of this sounds interesting to you, contributions are very welcome.

Testers — flash the image, boot it 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.

Developers — the stack is Debian, Python, Bash, C++ (EmulationStation fork), and Astro for this site. Areas that need the most work: emulator configuration generation, the theme, controller support, and the update system.

Open an issue or pull request on GitHub, or just reach out directly.