Telegram Desktop - messaging (Xenial & newer)

Telegram Desktop 4.2.4 builds (requires new Qt >= 5.15) for Xenial & newer.

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Update (25 Apr 2022): With thanks to Nicholas Guriev, Telegram maintainer for Debian, for his patches to build with Qt5. Latest Telegram now builds!

Update (18 Apr 2022): Telegram Desktop > 3.6.1 requires Qt6 to build so at this stage there will be no further updates to the version provided here.

Update (9 Mar 2022): Thanks to Colin Watson for a detailed answer relative memory exhaustion issues building latest Telegram 3.5.2 and his suggestion to resolve (see https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/+question/700841), the builds have all now succeeded and latest Telegram 3.5.2 is available!

Telegram at this PPA is built with Qt 5.15.x and KDE 5.80.x software, with these versions then being required to install and run. Only Hirsute 21.04 and newer have these versions, so for earlier releases the Qt/KDE software must be upgraded. For Xenial, Bionic & Focal read all notes at these PPAs:

https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/+archive/ubuntu/qt-5-15
https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/+archive/ubuntu/kde-5-80

If you decide to proceed with the upgrade of the Qt/KDE stacks on Xenial, Bionic, or Focal make sure to initially follow all instructions at the Qt 5.15.x PPA before proceeding with the installation steps described below.

*** Install ***

The FFmpeg 4 PPA must also be added for install, which provides FFmpeg 4.4 as well as PipeWire and required multimedia packages. Install as follows:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/telegram
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install telegram-desktop

Note for Xenial & Bionic: Telegram Desktop >= 3.3.0 requires GCC >= 10 to build (see issue #17379) and then to run. You can choose to add GCC 10.3.0 binaries only or GCC 10.3.0 binaries and also upgrade GCC system defaults (changes system default GCC to 10.3.0). Do ONE of these BEFORE the above:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/gcc-10

  OR

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/gcc-defaults-10

Alternative: The Spanish Linux blog Atareao provides a Telegram PPA with a simpler install. They package the official Telegram download for Linux (a .tar.xz compressed file, requiring manual steps to extract and run) with a post-install script to do the extraction and create a .desktop launcher file. That makes it an easy install process not requiring Qt/KDE upgrades for older releases. If you prefer that install method then see their PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~atareao/+archive/ubuntu/telegram

An advantage of installing from here (rather than the other PPA) is that when any system libraries (including at any required SavOS [*] PPAs) are updated with bug and/or security fixes Telegram will immediately benefit from those updates, due the build here being done with system libraries.

[*] See https://launchpad.net/SavOS for a brief intro to the SavOS project

For Signal Private Messenger: An alternate messaging app to Telegram with always-on encryption for text chats (in Telegram starting a "Secret Chat" for encrypted texts is necessary, usable on mobile devices only) though in both applications audio/video chats are always end-to-end encrypted. For Ubuntu an up-to-date package is built by Open Whisper Systems (creators of Signal). So to install Signal via apt (rather than Ubuntu Snap) do these steps (note: copy the first two wrapped command lines as single commands):

  wget -O- https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | \
  sudo apt-key add -

  echo \
  "deb [arch=amd64] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main" \
  | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-desktop-xenial.list

  sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install signal-desktop

As seen in the second command above Signal is built by OWS for amd64 only.

*** Build ***

This PPA has build dependencies on:

  ppa:savoury1/build-tools
  ppa:savoury1/backports
  ppa:savoury1/python
  ppa:savoury1/fonts
  ppa:savoury1/graphics
  ppa:savoury1/multimedia
  ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4
  ppa:savoury1/display
  ppa:savoury1/qt-5-15
  ppa:savoury1/kde-5-80
  ppa:savoury1/gcc-defaults-10

Additionally, for Xenial & Bionic:

  ppa:savoury1/node-{xenial,bionic}

Additionally, for Xenial only:

  ppa:savoury1/apt-xenial
  ppa:savoury1/perl-xenial
  ppa:savoury1/qt-xenial
  ppa:savoury1/kde-xenial