How to Record GIF Animations on Ubuntu

Two ways to do this. The most versatile is just installing byzanz.

sudo apt install byzanz

After that it’s all command line:

byzanz-record --duration=15 --x=200 --y=300 --width=700 --height=400 out.gif

It supports recording a region, the whole screen, or a window — run man for the details.

Sure, byzanz is powerful and all, but honestly it doesn’t have much over ffmpeg, which can spit out GIFs too. So why don’t we use something with a GUI?

Found one called Silentcast and it’s pretty good. There are build instructions on GitHub, but on Ubuntu there’s a PPA:

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

Using it is idiot-proof. Just remember to set your working directory, window, and filename — by default it overwrites the last GIF you recorded.

The end result looks decent. At the very least it’s convenient as hell.