14 DAY TRIAL // A new stable version of the Steam distribution platform has been released and the developers have integrated a huge number of changes and improvements, not to mention several a few features.
Valve usually goes through quite a few Beta versions before a new stable release is made. Most – if not all – of the changes made in the Beta releases usually land in the stable client and this is true for the latest version as well.
Linux users don't have any special updates, but most of the regular ones will definitely apply to the client, so it's a good idea to apply the patch and get the new version as soon as it becomes available.
New Steam for Linux client is out
According to the changelog, the friends' nicknames are now shown in the notifications, support has been added for the Family View recovery email address in Big Picture mode, an "I forgot my PIN" link is now provided in the Family View unlock dialogs (if a recovery email has been set), the user interface of the main window has been simplified, the energy usage has been reduced when running in the background, installing games using "-applaunch" or "steam://install" commands is now working properly, some cases where invalid URL strings would be parsed as URLs in chats have been corrected, and some issues with Unicode handling inside links in chat have been fixed.
Also, a regression that prevented public sharing of screenshots of non-Steam games has been fixed, the game banners are now appearing in the grid view while in offline mode, a warning sound is now playing when unlocking the Family View in the desktop mode, the AMD hardware encoding quality has been improved, Streaming audio from Linux will now use the default Pulse audio, and the keyboard input for non-Latin languages in the Web view of the Linux client has been improved.
The Valve developers have also enabled the Steam Music Player for everyone. It's now possible to listen to albums, queue up mixes, create playlists, and more with the same client that you use to play games.
How to get this Steam update?
If you don’t have the client, you can download the Steam for Linux installer from Softpedia. This is not the actual application, but a small tool provided by Valve that downloads the software and takes care of any dependencies.
Keep in mind that you will not get the update if you are using the Beta channel. Go to Settings and change back to the stable channel if you want to upgrade the system right now.