How to Install Discord on Rocky Linux 8

Discord is a free voice, video, and text chat app used by tens of millions of people ages 13+ to talk and hang out with their communities and friends. Users communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media, and files in private chats or as part of communities called “servers.” Discord is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux Distros.

In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Discord client on Rocky Linux 8 using three different methods.

Prerequisites

• Recommended OS: Rocky Linux 8.+.
• User account: A user account with sudo or root access.
• Internet Access
• Valid e-mail address to sign up an account.

Update Operating System

Update your Rocky Linux operating system to make sure all existing packages are up to date:

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh -y

The tutorial will be using the sudo command and assuming you have sudo status.

To verify sudo status on your account:

sudo whoami

Example output showing sudo status:

[joshua@rockylinux ~]$ sudo whoami
root

To set up an existing or new sudo account, visit our tutorial on How to Add a User to Sudoers on Rocky Linux.

To use the root account, use the following command with the root password to log in.

su

The tutorial will utilize the terminal for the installation found in Activities > Show Applications > Terminal.

Example:

Option 1. Install Discord as a Snap Package

Discord can be installed through the snap package feature that can be installed on Rocky Linux. The Discord snap package is distributed and maintained by Discord.

First, you will need to install the EPEL repository.

sudo dnf install epel-release -y

To install snapd on your Rocky Linux system using the following command.

sudo dnf install snapd

Example output:

Type “Y”, then press the “ENTER KEY” to proceed with the installation.

By default, snapd comes disabled. To start and enable snapd on system start, use the following command.

sudo systemctl enable snapd --now

For installing Snap (snapd) for the first time, it is advised to install the core files to avoid conflicting issues:

sudo snap install core

Example output:

core 16-2.52.1 from Canonical✓ installed

Next, some packages come in classic, so you need to create a symlink to enable classic snap support.

sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap

Once Snap core is installed, it is highly recommended to log out and back in again or restart your system to ensure snap’s paths are updated correctly.

sudo reboot

Next, enter the following snap command to install the Discord client:

sudo snap install discord

Example output:

discord 0.0.16 from Snapcrafters installed

Snap packages are more significant in size than traditional repositories through the DNF package manager. However, the trade-off is more straightforward maintained packages that are often updated to the latest version.

For the future, to update Discord and any other packages installed by Snap, run the following command:

sudo snap refresh

If you no longer need Discord installed, remove it using the Snap remove command.

sudo snap remove discord

Example output:

discord removed

Option 2. Install Discord with Flatpack

The second option is to install Discord with Flatpack that is installed on your Rocky Linux system. This method is quite popular as well with Fedora users.

First, you need to enable Flatpack for Rocky Linux using the following command in your terminal:

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

If you have removed Flatpak previously, re-install the package manager with the following command.

sudo dnf install flatpak -y

Next, install Discord using Flatpack as follows:

flatpak install flathub com.discordapp.Discord

YOU MUST RESTART YOUR DESKTOP SESSION IF THE ICON IS MISSING!

Example output:

Type “Y” twice (x2), then press the “ENTER KEY” to proceed with the installation.

YOU MUST RESTART YOUR DESKTOP SESSION IF THE ICON IS MISSING!

Updates are handled by Flatpack automatically every time you log into your system, generally within the first 10 minutes.

To manually update Flatpak packages, run the following command.

flatpak update

To remove the Flatpack version of Discord, run the following command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data com.discordapp.Discord

Example output:

Type “Y” twice (x2), then press the “ENTER KEY” to proceed with the removal of Discord using Flatpack.

Option 3. Install Discord Manually

The third option is to download discord manually and install it. This can be easier if you do not want to use third-party installation managers. Still, you will need to manually re-download and update for future major discord releases.

First, visit the Discord website and download the tar.gz latest file.

Example:

Once downloaded, navigate to the location you saved it to. In most cases, this is the Downloads directory.

cd Downloads

Next, create a directory for the Discord application to be extracted too.

sudo mkdir /usr/share/discord

Now, extract the Discord application to its final location.

sudo tar -xf discord-*.tar.gz -C /usr/share/discord --strip-component 1

Copy the discord.desktop application into the applications menu with the following command.

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

Lastly, you may have skipped ahead and noticed the Discord application has a strange non-discord type of icon, and you need to copy the discord icon manually into the /usr/share/pixmaps folder.

sudo cp /usr/share/discord/discord.png /usr/share/pixmaps

How to the Launch Discord Client

With the install complete from either installation method, you can run Discord in a few different ways.

First, while you are in your terminal, you can use the following command:

Discord

Alternatively, run the Discord & command in the background to free up the terminal:

Discord &

To remove the Flatpack version of Discord, run the following command:

flatpak install flathub com.discordapp.Discord

However, this isn’t practical, and you would use the following path on your desktop to open with the path: Activities > Show Applications > Discord.

If you cannot find it, use the search function in the Show Applications menu if you have many applications installed.

Example:

Now open Discord, you will come to the login page, either create an account or use an existing account, and that’s it; you have successfully installed Discord on your Rocky Linux desktop.

Comments and Conclusion

The tutorial has outlined how to install Discord from a snap, Flatpack, or manually download the archive.

Overall, Snap packages are somewhat unpopular, so the .rpm repository would be the way to go for most users. Discord is the number 1 gaming communications platform for online communities for the years to come.

However, TeamSpeak self-hosted is making a comeback. The future will determine if Discord can keep its dominance, given the privacy concern these days.