8 Best Screen Recorders for Desktop Screen Recording in Linux

It has become a common and good practice to record an important desktop session, say a case where you want to played a hard level of a game and want to observe how you possibly achieved later on Or you intend to create a video tutorial, a how-to article or a guide, or any other activity to do with recording your desktop session, then screen recording software can help you accomplish all the above.

In this review guide, we shall cover some of the best screen recording and live video streaming software that you can find for your Linux desktop.

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1. SimpleScreenRecorder

SimpleScreenRecorder is an application that enables you to record other applications and games running on your screen. It is a simple yet powerful and feature rich screen recorder with an easy to use interface.

For installation and usage read: How to Record Programs and Games Using Simple Screen Recorder in Linux

Some of its notable features include:

1. Qt based simple GUI
2. Can record entire screen or part of it
3. Directly records from OpenGL apps
4. Good audio and video synchronization
5. Helps to reduce video frame rates for slow machines
6. Support for pause and resume functionality
7. Shows statistics during the recording process
8. Supports previewing during recording
9. Sensible default settings, no need to alter anything and many more

Visit Homepage: http://www.maartenbaert.be/simplescreenrecorder/

2. recordMyDesktop

recordMyDesktop is a lightweight and powerful screen session recorder for your Linux desktop, it offers users some great features including choosing video and audio quality, a command line interface which allows recording and encoding only.

Additionally, it offers a clear GUI with basic functions that is few and direct user options, supports recording HD videos plus many more. Although it works exceptionally well, recordMyDesktop has got one major limitation, that is, its output is limited Theora video and Vorbis audio formats.

Visit Homepage: http://recordmydesktop.sourceforge.net/

3. Vokoscreen

Vokoscreen is a great screen recorder that records both video and audio in multiple formats, most importantly, it is user-friendly.

It offers some great features such as:

1. Recording the entire screen or application window or selected area
2. Allows access of the webcam while recording
3. Supports one application window recording
4. Magnification of selected area plus many more

Visit Homepage: http://www.kohaupt-online.de/hp/

4. ScreenStudio

Screenstudio is a powerful screen recording software for Linux that enables users to record HD video files. It works on Linux and Mac OS X and has some of the following components:

1. Supports both audio and video recording
2. Supports using overlay text and connection to webcam
3. Supports streaming of desktop sessions to Twitch.tv, UStream or Hitbox
4. Built around ffmpeg
5. Supports several video file formats including mp4, flv and so on

Visit Homepage: http://screenstudio.crombz.com/

5. Kazam Screencaster

Kazam is also a simple yet powerful screen recorder that you can use on your Linux desktop, it captures your screen content, records a video file and optionally audio from a supported input device.

You can now find it in the Universal Ubuntu repositories, but you can use a stable PPA to avoid waiting for latest releases from Ubuntu repositories.

It has some great features and some of these include:

1. Outputs recorded video in VP8 or WebM formats
2. Supports exporting videos directly to YouTube
3. Enables users to add text such title and description
4. Simple GUI and many more

Visit Homepage: https://launchpad.net/kazam

6. Byzanz-record

Byzanz-record is also a powerful text-based screen recorder for Linux, for those who love to work from the terminal, it can be a great alternative to the screen recorders we have looked at above.

It comes with some exceptional features and these include; enabling users to record desktop sessions to animated GIF files, supports recording of entire desktop, a single application window or a given screen region.

It offers recording functions directly from the command-line but users who prefer a GUI can take advantage of the panel applet. For more help on how to use this tool, check for its man pages at:

$ man byzanz

7. VLC Media Player

VLC is more than just a screen recorder, it is a popular, free, open-source and cross-platform media player that runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.

VLC supports several (almost all) video and audio formats, it is also feature rich and one of its great features is recording desktop sessions. Therefore, you can use it as a screen recorder on your Linux desktop.

Visit Homepage: http://www.videolan.org

8. OBS (Open Broadcaster Software)

OBS is a free, open source and cross-platform video recording and streaming application, it can work on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.
It has got several powerful features and the notable features include:

1. Supports encoding using H264 and AAC
2. Supports Intel QSV and NVENC
3. Supports unlimited number of scenes and input sources
4. Outputs files in MP4 or FLV formats
5. Allows access to webcam, capture cards and so on during recording sessions
6. Highly extensible through plugins, developers can use APIs to code their own plugins and many more

Visit Homepage: https://obsproject.com