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.
• App store: Bazaar gives you the full Flathub catalogue from inside EmulationStation. A curated set of apps (Heroic, Bottles, ProtonPlus, and others) installs automatically on first boot.
• Android apps: Waydroid runs a full Android container with GAPPS. Android apps appear alongside emulators in EmulationStation and launch with controller input routed correctly.
• 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.
• Network sharing: Your ROM library is shared over Samba. Drop files from any device on your LAN without SSH.
• Desktop mode: A full LXQt environment is one button press away for anything that needs a real desktop.
• Handheld support: TDP control via ryzenadj for Steam Deck, ROG Ally, Legion Go, Ayaneo, and other AMD handhelds. Brightness and volume hotkeys work out of the box.
• CRT support: Switchres-based CRT output with automatic modeline generation and teardown.

Status

HippOS is under active development and early access images are available. The build system, emulator pipeline, session infrastructure, app store integration, and Waydroid are all functional. The theme covers 150+ systems. Real hardware testing is ongoing — expect rough edges, particularly around controller configuration and per-game emulator settings.

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.