Don't want to see articles from a certain category? When logged in, go to your User Settings and adjust your feed in the Content Preferences section where you can block tags!
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Athenaeum, the FOSS game launcher and updater has a big new release

By - | Views: 17,138

Athenaeum, which is described as a "libre replacement for Steam" by the developer just recently had a big new release out.

Okay, so what exactly does it do? It's basically a front-end for Flathub and so all games are installed using Flatpak. Quite a handy application though, a little nicer than using the command-line or browsing the Flathub website directly. It may eventually grow into something bigger but for now it seems to do the basic job of managing FOSS games quite nicely.


Click to enlarge.

The 1.0 release comes with some new bits and pieces:

  • A completely new User Interface with multiple different screens.
  • An expanded search functionality with filtering by tags.
  • A recommendation engine to provide recommendations on startup based on games you have installed, and recommendations for games you are viewing in the browse area.
  • Preliminary work on multi OS support.
  • Install popup modal to inform you of game size before proceeding.

I'll be following this project along a little more closely now, will be fun to see it continue to grow.

You can see more about it on GitLab and install the application itself from Flathub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Apps, Open Source
10 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
4 comments

Nanobang Oct 2, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter
I saw the phrases "FOSS game launcher" and "replacement for Steam" and I thought I was going to read about how Athenaeum was a FOSS Steam client replacement! It's not, I can see now. But I'm a bit unclear about what it is or is meant to be.

Is it meant to be a game management project but strictly for FOSS titles, is that right? And currently it's limited to FOSS titles only found in Flathub's Games section?

I'm not going to sign up to GitLabs just for this, so I hope someone else will point this out to the dev. Athenaeum might be called a "Steam-like game launcher for FOSS games," or "A FOSS-only game management tool" or any plethora of other things which would be equally descriptive and really spotlight its role promoting FOSS games.

But it's not a "replacement for Steam." And it does itself a disservice advertising itself as such. There isn't a FOSS-specific game launcher---that I'm aware of, at least---and Athenaeum could do so much to promote those projects. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say Athenaeum is going to do so much to promote the world of FOSS games, but it's got to start by not calling itself "a replacement for Steam."


Last edited by Nanobang on 2 October 2019 at 1:31 pm UTC
Purple Library Guy Oct 3, 2019
Huh. Potentially interesting I guess, but my "replacement for Steam" for FOSS games is called "My distro's repository" and the "software manager" GUI thing.
Eike Oct 3, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Purple Library GuyHuh. Potentially interesting I guess, but my "replacement for Steam" for FOSS games is called "My distro's repository" and the "software manager" GUI thing.

I don't know software managers to put software into own categories or such. (I think there are some to at least site a screenshot?)
Purple Library Guy Oct 3, 2019
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: Purple Library GuyHuh. Potentially interesting I guess, but my "replacement for Steam" for FOSS games is called "My distro's repository" and the "software manager" GUI thing.

I don't know software managers to put software into own categories or such. (I think there are some to at least site a screenshot?)
I use Mint. Its software manager does categories, at least in terms of "Games" vs "Office" vs "Graphics" or suchlike. It doesn't have subcategories of games, but there aren't enough FOSS games for me to really need to worry about that. Well, not enough working FOSS games that I want to install for me to need to worry about that, anyway . . .
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.