Athenaeum: Useful manager of free and open games similar to Steam
days ago, in a post called "Always controversial: Why hasn't GNU/Linux been widely used?" we remembered how much progress has been made on our GNU / Linux Operating Systems to count today high level and quality apps to work, study and play. Although, we still have a long way to go, especially in AAA quality native games. While, Steam and other game managers They are great alternatives. And today, we will explore one very similar to Steam called "Athenaeum".
Manager of free, open and free games which owes its name to term "Athenaeum". Word that is widely used in various countries for schools, libraries, museums, cultural centers, performance halls and theaters, periodicals, clubs and societies, with the aim of fulfilling a cultural function similar to that of the old roman schools. But, in this case it focuses on the field of leisure and entertainment and specifically on collect and offer an excellent amount of free games, open and free.
And as usual, before getting into today's topic about this new Game Manager for GNU/Linux called "Athenaeum", we will leave for those interested in previous publications related to other similar applications in the field of games (Gaming), the following links to them. In such a way that they can easily explore them, if necessary, after finishing reading this publication:
“Steam is for many, the best of all video game digital distribution platforms. Above all, for being part of the world famous company that develops games and gaming hardware, called Valve.". Steam: Community, Store and Game Client for GNU / Linux
Athenaeum: A free replacement for Steam
What is Athenaeum?
According to its developers in its official website on GitLab, it is briefly described as follows:
"A free replacement for Steam".
However, "Athenaeum" it is rather simply a magnificent game launcher and manager built with PyQt5. In addition, it uses the container system of flatpack applications to be installed. That is, it is basically an interface for Flatub, so all games are installed with Flatpak. What saves us or avoids us, using the command line or directly browsing the Flathub website.
Finally, he is currently going for the version 2.3.2, released on the date 27/09/2021 under the GPL 3.0 license. Meanwhile, hopefully in time can become one gamer app largest in games of better quality and diverse functions. But for now, it works very well making the basic job of managing free, open and free games easier quite well.
Installation and execution
As stated in his Flathub website, his way of install and run via console is as follows:
Installation: «flatpak install flathub com.gitlab.librebob.Athenaeum»
Execution: «flatpak run com.gitlab.librebob.Athenaeum»
In our practical case, we have tested it as usual on the Respin (Snapshot) based MX-21/Debian-11, called Miracles, as shown in the following images:
Installation via terminal
Graphic execution via application menu
User interface
Setup menu
Note: For those who use Manjaro and other similar GNU/Linux Distros can explore said game directly in the following link belonging to Manjaro Web Software Center.
Summary
In summary, "Athenaeum" it is a great and functional Alternative Gaming to manage a huge amount of free, open and free games included. And thus, being able to easily enjoy fun and exciting games, strengthening this point of Leisure and fun that so much is needed for better on our loved ones Free and open operating systems, in other words, GNU / Linux.
We hope that this publication is very useful for the entire «Comunidad de Software Libre, Código Abierto y GNU/Linux». And don't forget to comment on it below, and share it with others on your favorite websites, channels, groups or communities of social networks or messaging systems. Finally, visit our home page at «DesdeLinux» to explore more news, and join our official channel Telegram from DesdeLinux.