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I find pretty irritating dealing with Telegram under Ubuntu. I run 18.04.1, I guess I picked the official Telegram client from Ubuntu Software... for a start, there a two clients in there. One from the Ubuntu store does not auto-update and the other does not recognize your theme/icon set/shell (see screenshot)...

enter image description here

Then you have as well the tar.xz on the official Telegram website that creates a double entry in the Show Applications menu and lives in your home folder for whatever reason. I believe there are also some esoteric unofficial clients you can find around.

So, it's a mess. I just want an official client who blends in well with your theme and auto updates itself to the latest version. Something normal, really. Anyone has some clues? Thanks!

Travis
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    It's unfortunate that first result for searching the word "telegram" shows an unofficial out-of-date app and the second result shows a CLI app. It can deceive general users. – HattinGokbori87 Aug 12 '18 at 19:08
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    Install from the official site. Still fine in 16.04 – minion91 Aug 13 '18 at 17:24

2 Answers2

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Telegram Desktop client is available in 3 form for Ubuntu:

  • The Snap version of Telegram is officially maintained and recommended version for Linux based OSes. It is updated regularly and gets automatically updated without user intervention. To install it run the command-

    sudo snap install telegram-desktop gtk-common-themes gtk2-common-themes

  • Second one is from Telegram's Github repository. If the Snap version doesn't work for you for any reason; you can download, extract and run this version. It won't get integrated with the system and won't get automatically updated. You have to manually download any new version.

  • The third one is from Ubuntu official repository. This version is also developed by Telegram but tested and maintained by Ubuntu developers. As per most repository apps, it doesn't usually get updates unless there's a security update. It also doesn't update automatically. But it will get updated (if there's any new version) when you check for updates for your system.

The Snap version may/may not blend with your system theme depending on which theme you use. If you stick with the common preinstalled themes present in Ubuntus and install the snap package called "gtk-common-themes" (which I included in the command), Telegram should adapt to the theme. And the Snap version will get updated automatically. Telegram from other two sources should blend well with your system theme regardless of your theme setup, but they won't meet your "update" expectation.

HattinGokbori87
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  • This is actually a good summary of what's out there. Keyword though: SHOULD. What I am using now is the second one and it's not picking up the icon/cursor theme. Or the shell, in my screenshot you can see the window on top, it's Telegram dialog when sending a file; looks way different from my Home at the bottom (blue highlight instead of orange for a start). It does update though, now I have 1.3.10, I got updated as you mention through the Software Updater. As for the first option you mention, it behaves weirdly: it installs itself in Home and creates a double Telegram icon in Show Apps. – Travis Aug 13 '18 at 16:10
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    Sorry, theme support is up to developers. I said first 2 non-snap version should look OK cause many Snap apps doesn't integrate well with system themes at this point. Though my Telegram (installed via Snap, using Xubuntu) seems to do OK with any themes :-) However, edited the answer to avoid confusion. Thanks. – HattinGokbori87 Aug 13 '18 at 17:04
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I suggest installing it from official repositories, that's where we know that the source code has been checked and the binaries are created exactly from that source code.

It will also receives security patches and bug fixes like any other package from Ubuntu official repositories.

If you want to always have the last version then you have to trust and install the telegram's official binaries, which is better than of any other unofficial version.

Ravexina
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