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Trying to install the Slack desktop beta on 16.04 LTS, but receiving an error after running apt-get install on the .deb package:

Unpacking slack-desktop (2.1.2) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /home/Me/Downloads/slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb (--unpack): trying to overwrite /usr/share/doc/slack/copyright', which is also in package slack 0.15.2-7
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing: /home/Me/Downloads/slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb
N: Can't drop privileges for downloading as file '/home/Me/Downloads/slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb' couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'. - pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied)
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Looks like it's clashing with the slack 0.15.2-7 package, which I guess is some other, unrelated package that comes as standard with Ubuntu.

Any ideas on how to overcome this and install the slack desktop package?

I have found myself with the same problem. I solved by removing by hand the slack package, which is just some admin tool.

If your are on the directory you downloaded the package, this should do the work:

sudo apt-get remove slack && sudo dpkg -i slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb

Have below my full log:

xino@xinopc:~/Descargas$ sudo dpkg -i slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb 
[sudo] password for xino: 
(Leyendo la base de datos ... 255115 ficheros o directorios instalados actualmente.)
Preparando para desempaquetar slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb ...
Desempaquetando slack-desktop (2.1.2) ...
dpkg: error al procesar el archivo slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb (--install):
intentando sobreescribir `/usr/share/doc/slack/copyright', que está también en el paquete slack 0.15.2-7
dpkg-deb: error: el subproceso copiado fue terminado por la señal (Tubería rota)
Se encontraron errores al procesar:
slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb
xino@xinopc:~/Descargas$ sudo apt-get remove slack 
Leyendo lista de paquetes... Hecho
Creando árbol de dependencias 
Leyendo la información de estado... Hecho
Los paquetes indicados a continuación se instalaron de forma automática y ya no son necesarios.
 libappindicator1 libindicator7
Utilice «sudo apt autoremove» para eliminarlos.
Los siguientes paquetes se ELIMINARÁN:
 slack
0 actualizados, 0 nuevos se instalarán, 1 para eliminar y 0 no actualizados.
Se liberarán 174 kB después de esta operación.
¿Desea continuar? [S/n] s
(Leyendo la base de datos ... 255114 ficheros o directorios instalados actualmente.)
Desinstalando slack (0.15.2-7) ...
Procesando disparadores para man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
xino@xinopc:~/Descargas$ sudo dpkg -i slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb 
[sudo] password for xino: 
(Leyendo la base de datos ... 255091 ficheros o directorios instalados actualmente.)
Preparando para desempaquetar slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb ...
Desempaquetando slack-desktop (2.1.2) ...
Configurando slack-desktop (2.1.2) ...
Procesando disparadores para gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Procesando disparadores para desktop-file-utils (0.22-1ubuntu5) ...
Procesando disparadores para mime-support (3.59ubuntu1) ...

I also had the same problem. I dig little deeper into the problem and found that I had slack installed from Ubuntu Software Center.

Then I removed slack from Software Center, and reinstalled slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb. It installed properly.

Steps:

1. Open Ubuntu Software Center


2. Search for slack, and if found uninstall it


3. Reinstall slack-desktop-2.1.2-amd64.deb.

I was having a problem with this as well and none of the answers I've seen yet have worked for me until I tried the following:

Download the file from the Slack download page. Instead of opening it in the Software Center, open it in the folder it downloaded to and right click and "Extract here". After extracting, in the terminal enter sudo dpkg -i ./Downloads/slack-desktop-2.8.1-amd64.deb. Make sure that you check your slack-desktop version number (i.e. 2.8.1) and that you put the exact path to the file (mine was in Home/Downloads).
After entering the code above, I saw Slack in my applications, ready to go.

If these answers still do not work for you, check that ~/.config/Slack belongs to you and not to root:

sudo chown -R username:groupname .config/Slack