As of today, the new program version 3-1.657 for Mac OS X and Linux is available for free download.

It is mainly meant for new installations: If you have a fully functional version on your Mac or Linux computer already, it is up-to-date through the auto update process anyway. So there is no need to uninstall your current program version and to install the new one.

So this new version is rather a "convenience update" which greatly simplifies the primary installation for new players.

The program version for Mac OS X now comes as a true installation package. The former way to simply drag the application icon into your Applications folder seemed to be much easier at first sight. However, in some situations this did not work correctly when using Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard."

Note: Please run the installation while logged into your computer with the user account you later want to use to play the games. The Catan Online World Client will be installed into your own home directory, since this is where the game stores its settings and, if necessary, post-installs updates from the Internet. You will find the installed COW client "Catan Online World" in your home directory under "Applications" / "Catan".

Furthermore, there is additional convenience for users with older Macs with PowerPC or 32-bit Intel CPU (CoreDuo) and/or Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger." These systems require to switch the COW client to the so called "compatibility mode". This now happens automatically during the installation.

In contrast to that, the program version for Linux is still a .tar.gz archive that needs to be unpacked manually. Its folder structure, however, is much clearer now: The main application directory "COW-Client" now contains only a handful of files.

The latest addition is a shell script called "Create-Desktop-Icon.sh." Running this script will create a shortcut icon on your desktop. This shortcut will activate the COW client by simply double-clicking it at any time. – This desktop icon is compatible to Gnome (e.g. Ubuntu), KDE (e.g. Kubuntu), and Xfce (e.g. Xubuntu).