Newbie just getting started

[cowboy13]

Hi all.  I'm brand new to the board.  I was wondering if I could get some advice from veterans to this kind of thing?  I have an old pc that doesn't get used too much except that its hooked up to a tv with my radeon card for playing old video games (mame, nes/snes emulators etc. in win 98)
Now, I eventually want to be able to throw this machine into a cabinet, but for the time being it will just be used infront of the tv with a couple of cheapie USB gamepads.  What I want to be able to do is setup my system in such a way that:
A. I can browse through a GUI to select any of the games from any of the old systems that I have emulators for
B. Not have to use a mouse or keyboard (just the gamepad) to browse these menus
C. Minimize boot time and not see any sort of Windows splash screen
I was thinking of setting up a Linux box to do this.  Is this the way to go?  Does anybody have any recommendations for starting out or what software I should look at?  Is there something that specifically does this or is there open source code available that I can modify?  I don't need it to be overly pretty but I would like to support as many of the old systems as possible.  Thanks

[Callahan]

I can only help with C, and even then not much. But I'll try to help you out.
One thing that Saint suggests in his book is; Re-install your OS, but select Custom Install (or something like that). Then only install the programs you'll need. So don't install Solitare, MS Paint,  word processors, etc.
If you need more info, just let me know and I'll try to help.

[cowboy13]

Thanks.  I know I'm going to be reinstalling an opertaing system.  Just not sure what I want to put on there yet.  I'd like to avoid Windows though for a couple of reasons.  I'd like the faster boot that linux would give me and I can muddle around with code for open-source game emulators to try to build the menu I want.  The alternative I suppose would be to go windows 98 and design a vb menu that runs on startup that allows me to pick which emulator and run a game through a command line option (if thats possible with the windows game emulators???) I'd prefer the Linux route though if anybody has done this and could explain what needs to be running on the box and suggest which version of Linux would be best suited for this.