Record screen to animated GIF on Linux (alternative to LICEcap)

Question

I use LICEcap fairly extensively when answering questions on Stack Exchange - its a VERY intuitive tool for making gif-based screen captures

You open the application, select an area to record, choose a filename to save it, and do your thing so it can record.

However, this is Windows and OS X only - I've occasionally toyed with using a Linux VM and capturing the VM window, but I'd like a native alternative that would record a gif the same way.

What could I use?

Answer 1

Update 10/22/2014: Seth Johnson has improved the Ubuntu PPA so that only the Silentcast PPA is required. (Previously, 3 PPA's were needed.)

Update 10/13/2014: Version 2.0 released. Added options to create webm or mp4 videos instead of just animated gifs. Added a script to do a full install without root privileges.

Update 10/4/2014: Runs in Unity, no problem, and there's now a PPA for installation - Thanks to Seth for his Unity Indicator patch and PPA. Please have a look at the installation instructions below which I've updated today. Also, you can run it without installing it. Follow the Any Linux Distro instructions, but don't run the install script. With Xfce, just open the extracted folder and double-click bash silentcast. With other desktops, run from the terminal from within the extracted folder. That's it! Nothing will be copied into your system files and deleting the extracted folder will completely remove it from your system.

I wasn't happy with either of these answers so I wrote my own: Silentcast.

If anything doesn't work for you, please file a bug at Silentcast Issues

Notice there's a stop icon in the Notificaton Area before I even start Silentcast, then a 2nd stop icon appears when recording begins. That's because I already had Silentcast running to make these animated gifs of how to use Silentcast. Silentcast 1 keeps going after I stop Silentcast 2.

Fullscreen: How to use Silentcast to record Gimp

Transparent: How to use Silentcast to record 2 windows

Interior: How to use Silentcast to only record the drawing

Entirety: How to use Silentcast to record 1 window

Installation

... (skipping over some stuff - in the full README, this includes a list of dependencies and distro specific instructions for installing them)

• Any Linux Distro Full Install Without Root Access

  • Install missing dependencies (see the Dependencies table and Installing Dependencies by Distro above)
  • Download a version of Silentcast:
    • Should always work as intended: Download Latest Release of Silentcast from github.com
    • Most likely working right: Download Silentcast master.zip from github.com
    • Probably broken when in active development, otherwise the same as master: Download Silentcast next.zip from github.com
  • Extract. Then, from a terminal, cd into the extracted directory and ./no_root_install Uninstall instructions are provided in the output of the no_root_install script. You can also see them in the comments to the launcher. See options with ./no_root_install -h. If installed to the default location, uninstall with the following commands: rm -r ~/.silentcast and rm ~/.local/share/applications/no_root_silentcast.desktop
  • See what version you've got with silentcast -v. [Check for a newer version](https://github.com/colinkeenan/silentcast/releases/latest

• Any Linux Distro Full Install

  • Install missing dependencies (see the Dependencies table and Installing Dependencies by Distro above)
  • Download a version of Silentcast:
    • Should always work as intended: Download Latest Release of Silentcast from github.com
    • Most likely working right: Download Silentcast master.zip from github.com
    • Probably broken when in active development, otherwise the same as master: Downlad Silentcast next.zip from github.com
  • Extract. Then, from a terminal, cd into the extracted directory and sudo ./install Uninstall instructions are the same replacing install with uninstall. The install (or uninstall) bash script just copies (or deletes) files. You may want to edit them if your distro puts files in unusual places.
  • See what version you've got with silentcast -v. Check for a newer version

...(see full README for how to install dependencies for your distro)

• Arch Linux Full Install

  • Use an AUR helper, like yaourt -S silentcast. This will automatically install the latest release and missing dependencies. Keep your install up to date the usual way with your AUR helper, like yaourt -Syua. Uninstall with sudo pacman -R silentcast
  • Without an AUR helper, just Download silentcast.tar.gz from aur.archlinux.org, extract, and do makepkg -si from the extracted directory. This will do exactly the same thing as an AUR helper would do for installation, but you will have to keep track of updates yourself. Uninstall with sudo pacman -R silentcast

• Ubuntu Linux Full Install

  • For 14.04 and 12.04 run the following commands to install Silentcast (for older versions of Ubuntu follow the "Any Linux Distro" instructions below):

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sethj/silentcast  
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install silentcast  
    

    Or run the following, condensed, command:

     sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sethj/silentcast && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install silentcast  
    

    • Uninstall
      Run sudo apt-get remove silentcast. You can then remove the PPAs with sudo add-apt-repository -r like so:

      sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:sethj/silentcast && sudo apt-get update
      

Launch Methods

• Menu Hierarchy
  • Graphics -> Silentcast
  • Multimedia -> Silentcast
• Search Box Terms
  • silentcast
  • screencast
  • record
  • gif
  • (and other things will work too)
• ALT+F2
  • silentcast
• Terminal
  • silentcast

Find Silentcast in the menu under either Graphics or Multimedia, type silentcast into the search box, or ALT+F2 silentcast. It can also be run from a terminal as silentcast.

Answer 2

One possible solution is byzanz if you don’t mind using the CLI. Byznaz run on Ubuntu and I didn’t test it on different Linux distributions. I tested it only on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

It's a rather rudimentary screen recorder with limited options.

Byzanz records GIF's and runs in a terminal only. It is not included in Ubuntu repositories and it can be only installed through a PPA.

To install use this commands

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/byzanz
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install byzanz

Man pages:

Usage:

  byzanz-record [OPTION...] record your current desktop session

Help Options:
  -?, --help               Show help options
  --help-all               Show all help options
  --help-gtk               Show GTK+ Options

GTK+ Options
  --class=CLASS            Program class as used by the window manager
  --name=NAME              Program name as used by the window manager
  --gtk-module=MODULES     Load additional GTK+ modules
  --g-fatal-warnings       Make all warnings fatal

Application Options:
  -d, --duration=SECS      Duration of animation (default: 10 seconds)
  --delay=SECS             Delay before start (default: 1 second)
  -c, --cursor             Record mouse cursor
  -a, --audio              Record audio
  -x, --x=PIXEL            X coordinate of rectangle to record
  -y, --y=PIXEL            Y coordinate of rectangle to record
  -w, --width=PIXEL        Width of recording rectangle
  -h, --height=PIXEL       Height of recording rectangle
  -v, --verbose            Be verbose
  --display=DISPLAY        X display to use

Answer 3

LICEcap works on Linux with Wine -- check it out:

This is on Arch Linux, 64-bit and wine 1.7.18.

Answer 4

You could take a look at Peek too.

Peek is a simple tool that lets you record a section of your screen and save it as an animated GIF image.

Peek screenshot:

Peek recording:

Peek requires FFmpeg + ImageMagick to be installed and currently only works with X11 and is targeted at GNOME 3 (thus it should work even in Unity so long as you don’t have Locally Integrated Menus enabled).

Answer 5

I Haven't seen it mentioned here, so try Scrot.

It's part of my Ubuntu packages so should be in universe at the least without PPA's

I Have zero experience in using it, but I'll generally go with a distro package managed version over a third party ppa or repository 90% of the time for such software.

Answer 6

I use 1. Byznaz for recording

sudo apt-get install byzanz #ubuntu
dnf install byzanz #fedora

2. python-xrectsel for area selection

pip install python-xrectsel