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.

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.