Spotify releases a Linux client

MUSIC STREAMING SERVICE Spotify has released a Linux client for its premium customers.

The service, which streams music over a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, recently announced new price plans and today revealed a beta client for Linux users. At present the client is only available for premium subscribers, as the firm's coders haven't been able to figure out a reliable way of displaying adverts yet.

Other than the lack of ad supported playback, Spotify is saying that many of the features found in its Windows and Mac OS X clients are already in its beta Linux client. Currently the major drawback is that the Linux client cannot decode local music files. So, at present the client does not play back any content on that's already on Linux machines.

While the Linux client is still in beta and comes with no formal support, Spotify claims that it will "try to make sure it keeps pace with its Mac and Windows siblings."

In the meantime, Spotify has released the beta client packaged for Debian based distributions such as Ubuntu, Knoppix, Xandros and of course Debian itself. µ