I see a couple of other comments reccomending exfat; I’ve had problems with exfat with both the Steam flatpak and the Steam system package. Exfat does not support linux symlinks which are needed for some if not most Steam games to work properly. You will have to re-install your games onto an ext4 or linux-friendly filesystem, for Steam at least.

Emulation and GOG is a different story though. I have both on an exfat drive and I can access and play them with both windows and linux.

In terms of security, you will be at a slight risk using an unsupported os in the future. But hey, some people I know are still on Windows 7, so it isn’t a huge risk. As long as you practice basic computer hygene and have an antivirus running (windows defender (easy), malwarebytes (secure), or clamAV (open source) are decent picks) you’ll be fine.

Yes, you can find it in the themes directory. It also has really good documentation on github in case you want to make custom collections or swap out game system cover art. I went down the qml rabbit hole because of pegasus, it was super fun

No problem! I think it depends on the theme. I use the Retro Mega Next theme which is optimized for handhelds, but it works great with mouse and keyboard.

I use Pegasus at the moment as it’s extremely customizable, although it does have a bit of a learning curve since you do most things through media.txt files. You can configure launch commands, box art/media/videos through an external scraper (I use Skyscraper), and you can point to bash files which opens up use of the terminal for basically anything you want to do OS side. It also has many different themes, basic metadata, and sorts games by system.

Emulation station is also another popular choice and is more out-of the-box minded bit still requires a bit of know how.

I also really like Playnite because it’s video game sorting heaven, but sadly it’s windows only and is really janky in wine/lutris. I eagerly await the day a working linux port arrives.

One area of The Talos Principle is set in Greco-Roman ruins. It captues a very specific tone. The puzzles are fun too

I also enjoy dualsense and there is definitely quality there, but I could not get it to work with a handfull of emulators on linux for some reason. I’m sure there could be some tinkering to do to get it working but I’ve just been using xbox series for plug n play

Not generic, but I’ve been using Xbox Series controllers with LMDE. They were plug n play and work flawlessly out of the box. I’ve used them with both bluetooth and wired and have had no problems with emulation and steam. You’d probably save more buying a used xbox controller for about $30-$50 than trial and error with cheaper off-brand gamepads

Can second this strategy. I still dual boot W10 and LMDE, but every day I find myself booting Windows less and less. All I really use it for is Roblox and Playnite, and Playnite isn’t even necessary because I’ve been getting more and more used to Pegasus on Linux.

You just gotta get comfy with a bit of program migration, for example I used to use programs like Word, Brave browser, and Playnite, and learned LibreOffice, Librewolf, and Pegasus one at a time until I didn’t need the often worse Windows version.

It’s unofficial, but you can play it via browser at shin.itch.io/elden-ring-gb, or download it and play via emulator

Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap for GBA is my all time favorite from the series. It was made late in the gameboy development cycle, and feels miles ahead of other gba titles. Imo it’s the pinnacle of 2d Zelda.

Another great title is Fire Emblem. It’s not the first one, but a lot of them can be played out of order, and it’s tons of fun if you like turn based strategy.

Other mentions: Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen, Pokemon Yellow/Blue, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Link’s Awakening, Fire Emblem Sacred Stones, Final Fight One, and the Elden Ring demake

For my use case, I wanted a hybrid distro that is more rock solid/no hastle but also updated enough for gaming. Og Debian’s update cycle is too slow for some of the things I was doing with proton and wine, while rolling release distros like Arch/Manjaro broke or required fiddling too frequently for my taste. I feel like LMDE is the perfect balance for me personally, taking the rock solid stance of Debian even further than og Mint or Ubuntu, while also being updated enough to not have problems gaming.

Secondly, I greatly prefer flatpaks to snaps, so that’s another reason I stay away from Ubuntu or Ubuntu forks.

I also respect the ethos of Mint and Debian much more than “corporate” owned Ubuntu. It feels much better being on a Debian based fork rather than an Ubuntu based fork, in case Cannonical wants to do stupid things to their OS.

Overall I think it comes down to me just wanting to use Debian, but with more frequent updates, that isn’t Ubuntu.

I use my pc for similar purposes on Linix Mint Debian Edition. Basically mint which is based on Debian instead of Ubuntu. Steam and emulation have been a breeze on it with flatpaks and I’ve fiddled around with Lutris as well. A lot of features are plug n play in many aspects, but the os gives you enough freedom as to not feel restrictive.

I’ve found that the community is helpful and big enough to have all my questions answered. You might need to do some tinkering if you use an Nvidia GPU though. I have an all AMD system, and it was relatively easy to get and install graphics drivers, which will probably be your biggest hurdle/headache with other distros outside of PopOS.