So, I've been getting back into gaming in a big way these last few months, after a low back injury left me sidelined from my other, more physically active hobbies.
The silver lining (or I suppose cat nip) for my ASD brain is modding. In the past 6 weeks, I've modded a ds, a dsi, a wii u, a wii (which underrated as a "turn it on and play the classics" machine), several Android TVs... yeah...
While I've loved all of them (the Wii especially brought me great joy), I wished there was a way to play everything in one spot. A curated console, as it were.
Of course, you know where this is going - emulation.
Through the wonders of Ebay, I was able go score a Lenovo M93p tiny for around $80USD (a SFF pc from around 2014, about same dimensions as wii).
Throw in a faster processor, lobotomise windows, throw on Playnite, Dolphin Emulator and a bunch of personal classic and... well...let me introduce you to my SuperPretendo 5 :)
PS: ChatGPT gen art (and typos aside), I kinda love what it came up with for this.
Bazzite is an OS that is similar to SteamOS, but no it's not "just for Steam."
It's a full Linux distro that is built for gaming, but not only gaming. It is very well integrated with Proton. You don't need to use Steam to launch games, but it makes it easier.
I haven't run into a game that I couldn't run (with about 99% of them just running out of the box with no tinkering).
Proton must have come along in leaps and bounds since I last used it in that case.
What front end does Bazzite use? I understood it to have Steam baked in; most of my games are from other sources, like GoG.
I think once Steam kills support for Win 10 (probs in a year or two, based on history) the smart move is going to be something like Bazzite.