[zozbot234]

Not seeing the point of this, all that much. I'd rather run something like Mobian or pmOS (given the tiny, mobile-like screen on most of these devices) once the hardware support on mainline kernel is up to proper standards. A lightweight environment like sxmo would probably work quite well with the custom HID controls. And it would open up this whole emerging class of low-cost devices for doing a whole lot more than just the emulator-based "gaming" that they're used for out-of-the-box.

(Not all of them are low-cost, either; there's plenty of high-end handhelds with physical buttons and analog controls these days, that could probably be usefully repurposed for productive work.)

[pikelet]

The whole point of my retro handhelds are to be an escape from this kind of complexity. I just want to sit down without any connection to the wider world and jump into some simple games like I did in my childhood. No distractions. They're for the times I want to escape 'productive work' for awhile.

[heavyset_go]

Completely valid, but I got into it to tinker. Some of us do want to fiddle with things when it comes to retro gaming handhelds.

[Shared404]

The upside of this is I can point my semi-technical but not Linux savvy parent at it and say "Press the install button".

As much as I love pmOS, it's just not there unfortunately.

[goosedragons]

Does Mobian work without a touch screen? Most of the kinds of devices Rocknix supports don't have one. Rocknix has a nice emulator front end out of the box, a media player, etc. and it all works with the game pad controls.

[zozbot234]

The Linux-on-mobile community is already exploring viable input methods for low-end devices with non-touch screens. Much of this effort can also be shared with the work involving TV-remote or gamepad-driven interfaces for the "media center" or "game console" use cases. Since Mobian is ultimately intended to just be a lightweight overlay over Debian, all of this work can easily benefit future versions of Mobian.

[DuncanCoffee]

Bazzite was built as a "plug and play" distro to play games on steam, I think their main handheld target is the Steam Deck which has a 7.4 inches display