Quick Zorin question

Hi everyone. Just wiped Windows and installed Zorin OS on my ThinkPad. Everything went smoothly and I’m loving Linux thus far, but I’m encountering a strange thing that I wanted to ask about. After installing the Telegram desktop app through Zorin’s software store, I cannot get it to update. It said that an update was available, but after clicking the update button, it is stuck and simply shows “Installing”. I thought about doing an uninstall/reinstall, but when I open the software store and view all installed apps, the “remove” button is missing from the Telegram app and it simply says “Installing” once again.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any help you all can provide and thank you for this excellent forum.

lol, mine has been like that forever but the app still works and seems to sometimes update. I have seen others post on the TG channel some specific instructions about installing TG successfully. Maybe search the channel or we both can watch the feedback here. I really am not excited about removing and reinstalling since it seems to work anyway.

FYI - there is a Zorin OS TG channel for Zorin questions. Also I found this on JP’s channel:
Use:
flatpak install org.telegram (in terminal)
(Once that goes through, select the number 1 option for the full app installation).

I also saw some people say to install TG from the TG website instead of any store? That code line for the terminal may be doing just that?
My Software installer says TG updates about each day even though it still shows updating in the Software installer. I think the latest version is 4.2. I hope all this info helped vs confusing matters more.

Thanks a lot, Ron. Really appreciate the info. :coffee:

Like you, the app is working fine but it just bugs me to see that update hanging indefinitely.

Hey @Jason and @ronbillock!
There are several sources you can install Telegram from, in all distros:

  • From the repositories (usually older version)
  • From the Flatpak market (latest version)
  • From the Snap store (latest version)

Unlike Windows, you can’t update the app itself directly from… well, the app. You’ll need to check which source you first pulled it from.

As it comes specifically to Zorin, I know that it doesn’t play with Snaps out of the box. So, chances are that you either have it installed from the official repositories or the Flatpak market.

How can you tell?

Open up a terminal so that we can check what is what.

Repository check
First, let’s make sure that the databases are up to date. Execute:

sudo apt update

Then, look to see if it’s installed via the repositories:

apt search telegram-desktop

It will produce the actual package. If it says [Installed] next to it, then you have the repository version. That one, unfortunately, is always a few versions behind the latest one - as the community takes time to vet all of its features before updates become available.

You can try to execute:

sudo apt upgrade -y

And see if that resolves the repository version, but I sincerely doubt it.

Flatpak Approach
The way you can check if your version is a Flatpak, execute:

flatpak list

This will produce all the Flatpaks that are installed in your system. Keep in mind that Zorin is very Flatpak-oriented, so chances are you will see quite a few of them. If you do spot Telegram in there, then you can perform an upgrade, by executing:

flatpak update

Flatpaks do not require elevated privileges (unlike repositories and Snaps), so you don’t need sudo here.

Switch to Flatpak Telegram
If you have a repository Telegram installed and want to switch to the latest Flatpak one, then you can either install both versions (yes, it’s possible) or you can remove the repository one and install the Flatpak one. The way you can do this is the following:

sudo apt purge telegram-desktop
flatpak install org.telegram.desktop

Then your Telegram will always be the latest version.

If you don’t have Flatpak access
You can always install it via the following commands:

sudo apt install flatpak
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Then, Flatpak will be fully accessible.

And you can always update all Flatpaks with the command I posted earlier:

flatpak update

I hope this helps!

My install of Telegam says:
telegram-desktop/focal-updates 3.1.1+ds-1~ubuntu20.04.1 amd64
fast and secure messaging application

I see it when i do flatpak list. I did 'flatpak update. I checked the software updater and ran a refresh and the update went away. Looks good for me.

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