Table of Contents

Minetest

A free open-source alternative is Minetest

Arch Linux

Install with…

snippet.bash
pacman -Syu minetest-server

Now need to setup a symbolic link to the systemd service file for the host you are running on.

snippet.bash
ln -s /usr/lib/systemd/system/minetest\@.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/minetest\@<hostname>.service

A configuration file is required, based on the contents of /usr/lib/systemd/system/mintest\@.service this should be under /etc/minetest/<hostname>.conf. The Arch install provides a sample config (to be found at /usr/share/minetest/games/minetest/minetest.conf.example) but a more comprehensive and detailed one is available from the GitHub repository minetest.conf.example). Key fields to change are under Networking

snippet.bash
### Networking
 
#    Network port to listen (UDP).
#    This value will be overridden when starting from the main menu.
#    type: int min: 1 max: 65535
port = 30000
 
#    The network interface that the server listens on.
#    type: string
bind_address = ***.***.***.***

You can then start the service with

snippet.bash
systemctl enable --now minetest@<hostname>.service

You can now launch minetest from another computer or Android device using Minetest App (F-Droid) and point it at the IP address you have entered under bind_address along with the port.

Gentoo Linux

snippet.bash
emerge -v openal && emerge -av minetest

If connecting to a remote server you have setup elsewhere you can just start minetest and enter the bind_address and port.

OSX

snippet.bash
brew install minetest