14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has just issued a new update for the Beta branch of Steam, which comes with more changes and improvements for the Big Picture feature and with another fix for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
Between stable builds, the developers launch a large number of Beta versions that integrate a lot of new features. The previous update for this branch was a really small one, but now a more important version has been released, prompting users to upgrade the application.
Most of the time, the Steam client is pretty stable and users don't usually encounter any problems with it, either about performance or stability. This doesn't mean that the software is perfect, because there still are instances where some features or options might not work as expected.
This is where the Steam Beta can help users who have certain problems with the client find some solutions for their issues, even if the application itself might be a little less stable than normal.
According to the changelog, a regression leading to incorrect layout some of the time when viewing store pages has been fixed, scrolling by a friend, who has the chat history list enabled, in Big Picture friends' list is no longer causing the desktop chat for another friend to open, and the pending friends invitations are now able to collapse into a single friends list entry if there are more than 5 in total.
Also, Web/Friends footer buttons are now showing in some cases where they were functional and should have been shown in the footer, and a problem that occurred after accepting a friend invite on the web in the Big Picture friends list has been corrected, although a more permanent solution to this issue might arrive in a later update.
The Steam developers have also fixed another bug with Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr), which was experiencing double input events.
Even if this seems like a minor update, if you have encountered these problems with the stable release, you should try the Beta update.
More details about this latest build and the bug that has been fixed can be found in the official announcement. You can download the Steam for Linux installer from Softpedia.
Keep in mind that this is a Beta version and you might experience some problems with it. In order to get it, you have to enroll in the Beta program, from Preferences, and you will need to restart the application.