Slack Desktop App Ubuntu 【Full – Handbook】

3.5/5 Stars (Works flawlessly until it doesn’t)

The Ubuntu Tightrope: Is Slack’s Desktop App a Native Friend or an Electron Foe?

If you live in a pure X11 environment and hate browser tabs, the desktop app is a 5/5 experience. It is responsive, has global hotkeys (Ctrl+K works everywhere), and finally separates your work anxiety from your personal browsing. slack desktop app ubuntu

Slack offers the .deb file on their website, but that’s for casuals. The Ubuntu Software Center version works, but it lags slightly behind. The power move? sudo snap install slack . Yes, the much-maligned Snap actually wins here. It auto-updates (critical for security patches) and sandboxes the app decently. The Flatpak version on Flathub is also solid, though I noticed a 0.5-second slower startup.

Let’s be honest: Slack in a browser tab is the digital equivalent of a leaky boat. You have 47 tabs open, you accidentally close the wrong one, and suddenly, you’ve lost your draft to your boss. So, you turn to the native desktop app. Slack offers the

It works better than Teams (low bar), but worse than Discord. It will keep you connected, but your battery will weep.

One bizarre quirk: If you install the Snap version, your microphone works perfectly for huddles. If you install the .deb directly from Slack’s website, you might have to install pipewire-pulse or fiddle with pavucontrol to get the mic recognized. The Snap version solves this because it bundles its own audio drivers. Snap wins again, much to the chagrin of the "Snap bad" crowd. sudo snap install slack

I installed the official .deb package on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy) and then again on 24.04 (Noble) to see if this Electron-wrapped behemoth plays nice with the penguin.