How to Install Microsoft Teams on Debian 11/10

Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication platform developed by Microsoft. It is a collaboration application built for chat, calling, collaboration, and meetings all in one place to make it easier for teams to stay organized and connected than using several other communication platforms separately.

The following tutorial will teach you how to import the official repository and install Microsoft Teams on your Debian 11 or 10 desktop using the command line terminal with two installation options, along with extra tips if you encounter any troubles launching the application and getting a constant buffering window.

Important Notice

The following tutorial was done with a Debian 11 Bullseye release and example images taken, but it was tested on Debian Buster and Sid. In the future, if Debian makes any changes to break the tutorial for one of the distribution versions, please place a comment for me to investigate so I can update the tutorial.

Recommended Steps Before Installation

Before proceeding with the tutorial, ensuring your system is up-to-date with all existing packages is good.

sudo apt update

Optionally, you can list the updates for users who require review or are curious.

sudo apt --list upgradable

Proceed to upgrade any outdated packages using the following command.

sudo apt upgrade

Install Required Packages

To complete the installation, you will need to install the following software packages using the following command in your terminal.

sudo apt install software-properties-common apt-transport-https wget ca-certificates gnupg2 curl -y

These are the most common software packages found on nearly all Linux distributions.

Create & Import Repository

Import GPG Key

The first task is to import the GPG KEY to verify the authenticity of the downloaded packages using the following command.

curl -fsSL https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/ms-teams.gpg > /dev/null

Import Repository

Now, import the official Microsoft Teams repository using the following command.

echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ms-teams.gpg] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/ms-teams stable main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ms-teams.list

Lastly, update your APT cache.

sudo apt update

Install Microsoft Teams

The next part of the installation of Microsoft Teams is to proceed with the installation using the following command.

sudo apt install teams -y

Alternatively, you can install the team’s insiders using the following command.

sudo apt install teams-insiders -y

Lastly, remove the added extra source file from Microsoft; this will cause issues with updates in the future. If you somehow delete the incorrect one, re-import the repository using the command at the start of the tutorial.

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ms-teams.list

How to Launch Microsoft Teams

Now that you have the client installed, launching can be done in a few ways.

Using the command line terminal, you can open the browser quickly by using the following command.

teams

The best way to use Microsoft Teams for desktop users that prefer not to use the command line terminal is to open the GUI of the application by following the path.

Activities > Show Applications > Microsoft Teams {version}

Example:

Once launched, you will get to the get started screen. From here, you can log on and use Microsoft Teams.

Example:

How to Update Microsoft Teams

Run the standard update commands for Teams and any default APT packages for future updates.

sudo apt update

When updates are available, run the standard upgrade command as you would with any other APT available updates.

sudo apt upgrade

Some users do not like the terminal and use it to ensure that whatever GUI methods you have set up are working correctly. The terminal often never fails unless something has gone wrong.

How to Fix Microsoft Teams Failing to Launch

Sometimes Microsoft Teams can not work and appear blank, mainly in virtual environments. The easiest method is to launch the software without a sandbox.

This can be done in the terminal as follows.

teams --no-sandbox

Insiders alternatively use the following.

teams-insiders --no-sandbox

For desktop users using the application, you may want a more permanent solution, so let’s modify the application.

Users that use the desktop icon use the following command to open up.

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/teams.desktop

Insiders use the following instead.

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/teams-insiders.desktop

If you are unsure or cannot find or open the files above, I suggest using a command that will print all applications with the name teams to get the correct name.

ls /usr/share/applications/teams*

Once this is done, you should get an output like follows.

/usr/share/applications/teams.desktop
/usr/share/applications/teams-insiders.desktop

So, for example, you could open the nightly, and now you have the correct name and path.

Once you open the correct application, find the following line.

Exec=teams %U

And change it to the following, adding the –no-sandbox to the line, so you do not need to use the command line terminal each time.

Exec=teams %U --no-sandbox

Example:

How to Remove (Uninstall) Microsoft Teams

When you no longer want the Teams installed on your system, use the following command to remove it.

sudo apt autoremove teams

For those that installed the Insiders, use the following command.

sudo apt autoremove teams-insiders

Remove the repository if you plan not to re-install Teams again.

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teams.list

After removing the repository list file, remove the GPG.

sudo rm /usr/share/keyrings/ms-teams.gpg