To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of different slick Linux screencasting tools. All of these tools are released under a freely distributable license, with the exception of Wink which is a no-charge closed source application. One commercial application which is also worth a mention is DemoRecorder by Christian Linhart Software, as it has excellent features and export options.
recordMyDesktop
recordMyDesktop is a program that captures audio-video data of a desktop session, producing an ogg-encapsulated theora-vorbis file.
recordMyDesktop tries to be as unobstrusive as possible by processing only regions of the screen that have changed.
The program is separated in two parts; a simple command line tool that performs the basic tasks of capturing and encoding and an interface that exposes the program functionality in a usable way. The frontend comes in two versions. One frontend is written with the gtk toolkit (named gtk-recordMyDesktop) and a more recent one with the Qt toolkit (qt-recordMyDesktop).
Byzanz
Byzanz is a command-line / GNOME Panel applet which allows users to record their current desktop or parts of it to an animated GIF file.
This is especially useful for publishing on the web, since every browser understands the GIF format.
Byzanz is not limited to GNOME, you can use it under non-GTK environments like KDE as well.
vnc2swf
vnc2swf is a cross-platform screen recording tool.
The sofware captures screen motion through the VNC protocol and generates a Shockwave Flash (SWF) movie.
xvidcap
xvidcap is a tool that captures movement on an X11 display for illustration or documentation purposes.
It works in two distinct modes: In single-frame capture mode xvidcap takes a configurable number of screenshots per second and saves them to individual files. In multi-frame capture mode xvidcap also takes a number of screenshots per second, but encodes them to a single video in real time. Audio capture is only available with multi-frame formats.
Istanbul
Istanbul is a desktop session recorder for the Free Desktop. It records your session into an Ogg Theora video file.
To start the recording, you click on its icon in the notification area. To stop you click its icon again. It can make a screencast of the full screen or just of an area of the screen. It is even capable of recording audio from the default input channel.
Wink
Wink is a software tool to make presentations and tutorials about using software programs. A Wink presentation will resemble a live walkthrough about how to use the software. The author of the presentation can also add comments and explanations to parts of the presentation to better explain the concepts and usage to the end user.
This software enables users to capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial.
The basic output format of Wink is Flash
Kazam Screencaster
Kazam is a simple screen recording program that will capture the content of your screen and record a video file that can be played by any video player that supports VP8/WebM video format.
Optionally you can record sound from any sound input device that is supported and visible by PulseAudio.