Archives For November 30, 1999

Peek screen recorder 1.4.0 was released today with stability fixes and some use interface improvements. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.04, and derivatives.

Peek is a handy desktop screen recorder with an easy to use interface. It supports recording to GIF, APNG, Webm, and MP4, and so far works on X11 or inside a GNOME Shell Wayland session using XWayland.

Peek 1.4.0 release highlights:

  • Move app menu into application window
  • New app icon
  • Set window type hint to UTILITY
  • Show shortcut hint in main window
  • Added Recorder, Video and AudioVideo to desktop files categories
  • Build fixes and updated translations.

How to Install Peek 1.4.0 in Ubuntu:

Note the Peek PPA will not update for Ubuntu 16.04 any more, since the 1.4.0 release required GTK >=3.20.

1.) Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut or by searching for “Terminal” from application menu. When it opens, run commands to add the Peek PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peek-developers/stable

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) for sudo prompt and hit Enter.

2.) Then check updates and install peek via 2 commands:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install peek

For those who don’t want to add PPA, grab the .deb package for your system from PPA packages page.

Uninstall:

To remove the screen recorder, either use your system package manager or run command:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove peek

You can also remove the PPA repository by going to Application menu -> Software & Updates -> Other Software tab.

Simple animated GIF screen recorder Peek 1.0.2 and then 1.0.3, with packaging fixes, were released a few days ago.

Peek provides a simple user interface allows you to select a screen area to record by moving and resizing the window. There’s a countdown after clicking on the ‘Record’ button.

Peek 1.0.2 / 1.0.3 come with bug-fixes, translation updates and small tweaks:

  • Finish and save recording when closing the app while rendering
  • Highlight file when launching Dolphin file manager
  • Use raw video for recording GIF with GNOME Shell recorder (fix poor video quality)
  • fix app failed to record MP4 when dimensions where not divisible by 2
  • fix the countdown issue.
  • fix that close window while recording could leave temp files behind
  • fix notification in KDE Plasma, Cinnamon and XFCE
  • Place close button on the left on all desktops
  • Translation updates, added man page.

How to Install Peek GIF recorder in Ubuntu:

The developer has made the packages into PPA repository, available for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 16.10, Ubuntu 17.04, Ubuntu 17.10, and derivatives.

Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T or searching for “Terminal” from app launcher, when it opens, run commands:

  1. Add the Peek stable PPA:
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peek-developers/stable
  2. Then check updates and install peek via commands:
    sudo apt-get update
    
    sudo apt-get install peek

For those who don’t want to add PPA, grab the .deb package from your system from PPA packages page.

Uninstall:

To remove the screen recorder, either use your system package manager or run command:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove peek

You can also manage the PPA repository by going to System Settings -> Software & Updates -> Other Software tab.

Record Animated GIF Images in Ubuntu 16.04 via Peek

Last updated: November 16, 2016

For those who want to record a selection of your screen to an animated GIF image, Peek is open source tool for Linux that offers a simple window that can be resized to select a screen area to record over.

After resizing Peek window to select a screen area, click the Record button to start recording.

Once you stop the recording, a dialog pops-up and prompts you to give a name and select where to save the GIF image.

After you save the GIF image, a dialog pops-up allows you to open the file folder quickly with the GIF image automatic highlighted.

Install Peek Animated GIF recorder in Ubuntu 16.04:

Peek so far only support Linux with X11. Other Unix like systems using X11 should work as well. It is planned to also support Wayland and maybe other operating systems in the future.

1. Open terminal from Unity Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T keys, then run command to install the requirements:

sudo apt install libsdl1.2debian ffmpeg libavdevice-ffmpeg56

2. Then download peek, Linux.deb package from the link below:

Finally click install the .deb via Ubuntu Software or use dpkg -i command in terminal:

sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/peek-*.deb && sudo apt -f install

Once installed, launch peek from Unity Dash or your app launcher and enjoy!

Want to make screencasts as animated GIFs on Ubuntu? Well, byzanz is the best choice I ever found.

Byzanz is a small and efficient screencast creator. It records your desktop session or parts of it to an animated GIF, OGG Theora or Flash.

Below is an animated GIF created by byzanz:

It is said that byzanz does not screencast Unity-3D. However, I’ve been using it in Unity for a period of time since I was in Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal.

To install byzanz in Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 12.10, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run below commands one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/byzanz

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install byzanz

This is an example I did just now:

byzanz-record --duration=15 --x=0 --y=0 --width=500 --height=350 output.gif

For more options, run:

man byzanz-record

Enjoy!