Slack is the king of workplace chat, be it for organising and collaborating on work or (let’s not lie) gossiping – and it’s easy to install on Ubuntu.
Something of a virtual office for any group, Slack can do more more than just facilitate “chat” between colleagues or collaborators. It supports rich media messages and file uploads as well as basic text, there are tags, mention and other social media-isms.
Users can chat in channels, groups or take things to on one-on-one chats, talk using voice or webcam, and make us of web service integrations. To keep things truly useful, there’s a fully searchable message history too.
But then: chances are you know all that.
If you use Ubuntu and want to install Slack on your system, you have several ways to do it.
Install the Slack Snap Ubuntu
The Slack Linux client is not open-source, so it’s not included in the main Deb-based Ubuntu repositories. That is why you can’t run sudo apt install slack to get it.
But Slack is available on the Snap Store:
- Open the Ubuntu Software or App Center
- Search for ‘Slack’
- Click on the matching result
- Click the install button
- Enter your password when prompted
That’s it; once the download is complete, you can launch the app and login.
If you prefer to install software using your terminal, you can also install the Slack Snap app by running sudo snap install slack instead – faster, and gets you the exact same client as above.
Follow the on-screen prompts to sign up for a Slack account or login with an existing account. You’ll need to join any Slack workspaces you’re invited to (if you’re not sure which workspace you need to join, ask your employer for an invite link or more information).
Then, you’re all set.
You can send messages, share files, and shower your colleagues and friends with endless emoji reactions. You will receive notifications on your Ubuntu desktop when the app is running in the background. Clicking on a notification to focus the app so you can respond.
Prefer Deb? Slack has one of those too
Don’t want to use the Snap package? You don’t have to. There is an official Slack .Deb installer too. You can install that Deb package on Ubuntu, as well well as on Ubuntu-based Linux distributions like Linux Mint, Zorin OS and Pop!_OS.
Go the Slack website to download the Linux client. Or, run this command:
wget https://downloads.slack-edge.com/desktop-releases/linux/x64/4.51.191/slack-desktop-4.51.191-amd64.deb
Once the Slack client DEB has completed downloading you can go ahead and double-click on it to install it in the Ubuntu Software or App Center apps (on Ubuntu; other distros have their own tools for handling it).
You can also install the Deb file from the command line too:
sudo apt install ./slack-desktop-*.deb
If you encounter any problems installing or using Slack refer to the support documentation, guides, and tutorials on the official website.
I hope this guide helps you to install Slack on Ubuntu. Let me know if you have any questions otherwise, happy slacking!