Best Linux Screenshot And Screencasting Tools

There comes a time you want to capture an error on your screen and send it to the developers or want help from Stack Overflow, you need the right tools to take that screenshot and save it or send it. There are tools in the form of programs and others as shell extensions for GNOME. Not to worry, here are the best Linux Screenshot taking tools that you can use to take those screenshots or make a screencast.

Best Linux Screenshot Or Screencasting Tools

1. Shutter

Shutter is one of the best Linux screenshot taking tools. It has the advantage of taking different screenshots depending on what you want to take on your screen. After you take the screenshot, it allows you to see the screenshot before saving it after you take the screenshot. It also includes an extensive menu that shows up on your top panel for GNOME. That makes accessing the app much easier and much convenient for anyone to use.​You can take screenshots of a selection, a window, desktop, window under cursor, section, menu, tooltip or web. Shutter allows you to upload the screenshots directly to the cloud using the preferred cloud services provider. This Linux tool also allows you to edit your screenshots before you save them. It also comes with plugins that you can add or remove.

To install it, you will have to type the following in the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:shutter/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install shutter

2. Vokoscreen

Vokoscreen is an app that allows you to record your screen as you show around and narrate what you are doing on the screen. It is easy to use, has a simple interface and includes a top panel menu for easy access when you are recording your screen.

You can choose to record the whole screen, a window or just a selection of an area. Customizing the recording is easy to get the type of screen recording you want to achieve. Vokoscreen even allows you to create a gif as a screen recording. You can also record yourself using the webcam in case you were narrating as tutorials so that you can engage the learners. Once you are done, you can playback the recording right from the application so that you don’t have to keep navigating to find the recording.

  You can install Vocoscreen from your distro repository. Or download the package from pkgs.org, select the Linux distro you are using.

sudo dpkg -i vokoscreen_2.5.0-1_amd64.deb

3. OBS

OBS can be used to record your screen as well as record streams from the internet. It allows you to see whatever you are recording as you stream or as you narrate your screen recording. It allows you to choose the quality of your recording according to your preferences. It also allows you to choose the type of file you want your recording to save to. In addition to the feature of recording, you can switch to Studio mode allowing you to edit your recording to make a complete video without having to use any other external editing software. To install OBS on your Linux distribution, you must have FFmpeg installed on your machine. To install FFmpeg type the following in the terminal for ubuntu 14.04 and earlier:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kirillshkrogalev/ffmpeg-next
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

​For ubuntu 15.04 and later you can just type the following in the terminal to install FFmpeg:

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

​If you have already installed FFmpeg, type the following in the terminal to install OBS:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:obsproject/obs-studio
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install obs-studio

4. Green Recorder

Green recorder is a simple interface based program that allows you to record the screen. You can choose what to record including video or just audio and allow you to show the mouse pointer and even follow it as you record your screen. You can record a window or just a selected area on your screen so that only what you want to record shows up in your recording. You can customize the number of frames to record in your final video. In case you want to start recording after a delay, you have the option to configure the delay you wish to set. You have the option to run a command after the recording is done that will run on your machine immediately after you stop recording.
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To install green recorder, type the following in the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossproject/ppa
sudo apt update && sudo apt install green-recorder

5. Kazam

Kazam Linux screenshot tool is very popular amongst Linux users. It is an intuitive simple to use app that allows you to take a screencast or a screenshot allowing you to customize the delay before taking a screencast or screenshot. It allows you to select the area, window or fullscreen you want to capture. Kazam’s interface is well laid out and not as complicated as other apps. Its features will leave you happy about taking your screenshots. Kazam also includes a system tray icon and menu that allows you to take the screenshot without going to the application itself.

To install Kazam, type the following in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install kazam

​If the PPA is not found, you can install it manually using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kazam-team/stable-series
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install kazam

6. Screenshot tool GNOME extension

There is a GNOME extension just named screenshot tool that always shows up on the system panel until you disable it. It is convenient since it just sits on the system panel until you will trigger it to take a screenshot. The main advantage of this tool is that it is the quickest to access since it is always in your system panel unless you deactivate it in the tweak utility tool. The tool also has a preference window allowing you to tweak it to your preferences. To install it on your GNOME desktop, head to extensions.gnome.org and search for “Screenshot Tool”. You must have the gnome extensions chrome extension installed as well as GNOME tweaks tool installed to use the tool.

The Linux screenshot tools are quite helpful especially when you don’t know what to do when you come across a problem and want to share the error with the Linux community or the developers of a program that you are using. Learning developers or programmers or anyone else need it will find these tools useful to share your screenshots. Youtubers and tutorial makers will find the screencasting tools even more useful when they use them to record their tutorials and post them.​