Recording a Desktop session using Linux

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, I'd hate to calculate what a video is worth then. The usefulness of this application is probably underated. Let's say you wanted to show someone a complicated gimp procedure, but you can't show them in person, as you live on different continents. VNC would work, but if it's complicated, it would be nice to have the "instructions" saved as a video. So you could record it and send it via the web or on a cd/dvd, or perhaps you "could" vnc in and show them and they could use this app and record the entire process on their end, saving the huge download or delay in mail. Either way, recording the desktop session is a handy thing to do at times. Perhaps you just want to record your Beryl session and shove it in your buddys face because he's still using that inferior OS.


Whatever your reasons for recording, perhaps the easiest way to record your desktop is using Linux is a program called: recordMyDesktop. Catchy name isn't it ;) recordMyDesktop is actually just the command line program to record your desktop, there are 2 gui interfaces you can use with it to create a very simple way to record a desktop session. My example thegimp.ogg video shows me recording part of the desktop and playing with the gimp. Nothing spectacular, but gives you an idea of what it can do.



recordMyDesktop's hompage is http://recordmydesktop.iovar.org/about.php

From the webpage:

recordMyDesktop offers also the ability to record audio, along with video,
through ALSA, OSS or the JACK audio server.

Also,
recordMyDesktop produces files using only open formats
These are theora for video and vorbis for audio,
using the ogg container.


A user guide is also available here: http://recordmydesktop.iovar.org/rug/toc.php


This application makes it very easy to "record" digitally what your doing ... say with the gimp, and shows visually how to do "X". One thing I noticed, you need to record at about 100% video quality, or it doesn't look good. At 100% video quality, it looks awesome and clear, but does create quite a large file. So, if you plan on making a gimp video tutorial (let me know if you do)... it might be easiest to distribute on dvd's instead of downloads. All in all, it's a great new (for me) addition to my library of graphic apps for Linux.


Installing the applications in my Arch system was extremely simple.




pacman -S recordmydesktop gtk-recordmydesktop qt-recordmydesktop




This installed the commandline application and both gui's for it. Ubuntu was as simple using Synaptic and searching for those apps and installing them. Worked well on both distros. Give it a shot, I think you'll be impressed.