Introduced in 2015, Discord quickly became gamers' first choice of communication platform. Although it was originally developed for gamers, the versatile features of the application found their needs in other communities as well.

Discord runs natively on all major operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. Since there are several ways of installing software on Linux, not to mention the variety of distributions available to users, it can become really complicated for a beginner to install Discord.

This guide will demonstrate how to install Discord on different Linux distros, including Debian/Ubuntu, Arch Linux, and RHEL-based distros like Fedora.

How to Install Discord on Debian/Ubuntu

If you're using a Debian-based Linux distro like Ubuntu or Linux Mint, you have multiple ways to install the package. You can either download the DEB package and install it manually through the command line or simply use the Snap Store to install Discord.

1. Using the DEB Package

DEB is the standard package format for Debian and its derived operating systems. You can install such packages easily using the command line.

To start, head over to the Discord website and click on the Download for Linux button. In the dropdown menu that appears, select deb.

download the discord deb package

Download: Discord (Free)

Once the system has finished downloading the package, go to the Downloads folder and locate the downloaded file.

If you're using Ubuntu, you can simply double-click on the file to start the installation process. In the next window, click on the Install button to start installing Discord on your system.

installing discord on ubuntu

Once the installation process is complete, you can launch Discord from the applications menu.

Alternatively, you can also install the DEB file using the command line. First, change your directory to the Downloads folder using the cd command.

        cd ~/Downloads
    

Then, use the dpkg command to install the downloaded DEB file.

        sudo dpkg -i discord-x.x.x.deb
    

2. Install Discord Using Ubuntu Software Center

On Ubuntu, you can download Discord using the preinstalled Ubuntu Software application.

  1. Launch Ubuntu Software Center from the applications menu.
  2. You'll find Discord under the Editor's Picks section. If not, click on the Social category button and select Discord from there.
  3. On the application page, click on Install to download the package.
install discord from software center

After the installation is complete, you can launch Discord from the applications menu as you'd normally do with other apps.

To uninstall Discord, head over to the Discord page in the Software Center and click on the Remove button.

uninstall discord from ubuntu software center

3. Install Discord Using Snap

If you've configured snap on your system, you can download the Discord snap package and install it easily.

First of all, check whether your system has snap support enabled using the following command:

        snap
    

If the terminal outputs the following, then you have snap installed.

snap command on ubuntu

Related: Everything You Need to Know About Snap and Snap Store

Now, install the Discord snap package using:

        snap install discord
    

The package will start downloading and the system will install Discord in no time.

In case you want to uninstall the Discord snap package from your system, use the remove command:

        snap remove discord
    

How to Install Discord on Other Distros

While the aforementioned methods work only in Debian-based distros like Ubuntu, this section demonstrates a traditional way to install Discord on any Linux distro of your choice, including Arch Linux and Fedora.

This is made possible using TAR archives. On Linux, developers usually compress package files into TAR archives which are further decompressed and installed by the users.

To start, download the Discord TAR archive from its official website. Click on the Download for Linux button and select tar.gz from the dropdown menu.

Once the download is complete and you have Discord on your device, launch the terminal and change the current working directory to Downloads.

        cd ~/Downloads
    

Extract the TAR file to the /opt directory using tar:

        sudo tar -xvzf discord-x.x.x.tar.gz -C /opt
    

The /opt/Discord directory contains the Discord binary and desktop files. Create a symbolic link for the binary file in /usr/bin.

        sudo ln -sf /opt/Discord/Discord /usr/bin/Discord
    

The aforementioned command allows you to run Discord from your terminal, irrespective of the present working directory.

Now, create the desktop shortcut and menu entry for Discord. To do that, you'll have to edit the discord.desktop file. You can use any text editor that you prefer.

        sudo nano /opt/Discord/discord.desktop
    

Change the values next to the Exec and Icon variables. Add /usr/bin/Discord as the Exec value and /opt/Discord/discord.png as the Icon.

desktop entry for discord

Copy the Discord desktop file to /usr/share/applications so that your system can process it and reflect the changes in the applications menu accordingly.

        sudo cp -r /opt/Discord/discord.desktop /usr/share/applications
    

Once you've executed all the commands, the desktop entry for Discord will get added to the menu.

How to Uninstall Discord From Your System

If you've installed Discord using its TAR package, removing it is a piece of cake. All you need to do is delete some files from your system. Delete the Discord config file present in the home directory.

        sudo rm -r ~/.config/discord
    

Then, remove all Discord files from the /opt directory.

        sudo rm -rf /opt/Discord
    

Remove the symbolic link that you created for the Discord binary file.

        sudo rm /usr/bin/Discord
    

Finally, remove the desktop shortcut from your system.

        sudo rm /usr/share/applications/discord.desktop
    

Alternatively, You Can Use Discord in an Online Browser Instead

Even if you don't want to install Discord on your system, you can still use Discord Web in a browser. The Web version of Discord has all the features that you'll find in the desktop client.

To use Discord in your browser, go to discord.com and click on the Login button located on the top-right corner of the web page. Enter your credentials and Discord will automatically redirect you to your dashboard.

using discord online in a browser

Using Discord Web, you can join voice channels, send text messages, create servers, and do essentially anything that the desktop app allows you to.

The only drawback of using Discord in a browser is that you can't use the noise suppression feature while hanging out in a voice channel. If that's something you can compromise, you don't even need to install the desktop client on your system.

Discord Is Becoming the Go-To Place for Many Online Communities

Apart from gamers, Discord has become the communication platform of choice for many other communities as well, including artists and sports enthusiasts. People are using Discord for organizing team meetings and project collaboration.

It's about time Discord will stand head-to-head with other team management platforms like Slack. And who knows? Your school or employer might soon make the switch to Discord.