J_K9 @ Linux » HOW TO: Record Videos Of Your Desktop

HOW TO: Record Videos Of Your Desktop

June 30, 2006 on 2:37 pm | In Linux, Ubuntu, HOW TO |

Have you ever wanted to take a video of your sleek desktop, with your customised icons, window manager, GKrellM, and whatnot? Or make a video of cool XGL effects? Or a video tutorial to teach a few friends how to use a certain application? If you have, then this tutorial is for you.

Because Linux does not have a native screen recording application (well, it has xvidcap, but that can be difficult to set up), we have to use a workaround - namely using VNC to transmit the data of our X server to ourselves. I won’t bore you with the gory details, as there are many other sites which can do this for me - and they’re only a Google search away. This method will create a Flash video of your desktop, which you can then edit to your liking.

What will I need for this?

Not much (but don’t download any of the extra apps yet):

A Linux distribution, with an X server. I am using Ubuntu 6.06 TLS in this example;
The latest version of x11vnc;
The latest version of pyvnc2swf (the Python version).

If you have Ubuntu or another distro with fairly large repositories, installing x11vnc is a breeze. All I had to do to install it was:

$ sudo apt-get install x11vnc

If the above command (or the one for your distro) worked, and x11vnc is now installed, please continue to the next step: Extract pyvnc2swf - if not, carry on reading. It looks like you will need to build x11vnc from source, as your distro does not have it in its repositories. First of all, download the latest version of it. Then, extract it using the following command:

$ tar xzf x11vnc-versionnumber.tar.gz

Now, let’s install it.

$ cd x11vnc-versionnumber/
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install

You’re done!

Extract pyvnc2swf

Download the latest .tar.gz Python version of vnc2swf and save it to your home folder. Those two points are crucial - the script we will be using will not work with the C version, and nor will it work if the extracted folder isn’t in your home folder (/home/~username).

Ok. Open up xterm, and make sure you’re in your home folder (run cd ~ if you’re uncertain). Then, run the following command (replace versionnumber with the version number, as you did before):

$ tar xzf pyvnc2swf-versionnumber.tar.gz

That’s all you need to do - extracting it is good enough!

Use the Script

To make recording videos easier, we’re going to use a script. It will do all the dirty work for us. (Note: If you want the audio input via MIC to work in the script, you will need to have ffmpeg installed - to install it on Ubuntu, this can be done using the command ‘sudo apt-get install ffmpeg‘)

Open up your favourite text editor, and put the following code into it (coloured blue):

#!/bin/sh
#
x11vnc -localhost -viewonly -wait 10 -defer 10 &
python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N -S ‘arecord -c 2 -f cd -t wav voice.wav’ localhost:0
ffmpeg -i voice.wav -ar 22050 voice.mp3
python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py -o tutorial1.swf -a voice.mp3 tutorial.swf
mv ~/tutorial1.swf ~/tutorial.swf
rm ~/voice.wav
rm ~/voice.mp3
rm ~/tutorial1.html

Save this script as ‘vidtut.sh‘ in your home directory. Not only will this script record a video of your desktop, it will also record any input via a microphone and add it as sound to the resulting flash file. If you don’t want it to record audio input, simply mute MIC input in your sound manager - alternatively, you can use the command I’ve mentioned in comment #29 beneath this post.

To make the script executable, run the following command:

$ chmod 755 vidtut.sh

Now that we have everything set up, it’s time to run our app! Still in your home directory, run the following command:

$ ./vidtut.sh

A window like the one in Figure 1 should appear.

Figure 1: pyvnc2swf in action, thanks to our script

Now all you need to do is click the ‘Start’ button to begin recording, and hit the same button (which changes to ‘Stop’) once you’re finished. Two files will have been created in your home folder: tutorial.html and tutorial.swf. Distribute both, as the viewer should open the tutorial.html file in order to view the video properly (scaled accordingly).

Thank you for reading this tutorial - please leave a comment below, whether it is to stop by and say “Hi!”, or to ask a question!

NOTE: Kudos to BruceCadieux for the majority of the script, and to the developers of those two apps for making this possible!

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139 Comments »

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This sounds like a great idea. It could be a good way to add content for a video blog, or just a normal blog.

Thanks

/me goes to make some videos to post to his blog

Comment by Michael — June 30, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
No problem - I’m glad you liked it

And thanks for reminding me about your blog - you have some excellent content

Comment by J_K9 — June 30, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Great article! I just installed Ubuntu 6.06 myself and would like to create videos for instructional purposes as part of my contribution to the Linux conspiracy. I’ll give this a try.

Comment by Ken Baker — June 30, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Windows 98
And I’ll be back on Ubuntu in about an hour.

Comment by Ken Baker — June 30, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Windows 98
Once your videos are completed perhaps we can host them for you on our new site tuxvids.com for everyone to see? Just contact us. We can also link back to this article so that others who want to create videos of Linux can post their vids as well. Just use the contact form on the site get in touch.

Comment by Dennis — June 30, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
Ken - You’re welcome! I’m glad it helps - although, I have to give credit to the great members at LQ for helping me out in the first place

Dennis - Sure. Thank you for letting us know! I was thinking of making a video of XGL in action.. But, my laptop isn’t good enough to handle XGL and the recording software at the same time

[edit] I almost forgot - if you’re using the vidtut.sh script with an older (or newer!) version of pyvnc2swf, you will need to edit it so that the version number matches that of your installed copy.

Comment by J_K9 — June 30, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
It’s propably a nice idea, but suggesting the use of swf under linux while there is no uptodate shockwaveplayer and a yet not so good working (*sniff*) open source alternative

Comment by Karsten König — June 30, 2006 #
Using Konqueror 3.5 on Ubuntu Linux
I know - but it is one of the only working methods of making videos on Linux.

The Gnash project is improving, and I’m sure it will not be long before we have a FOSS Flash player. But, until then, we will have to stick with what is offered to us..

Comment by J_K9 — June 30, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
I’m trying this on Breezy and it crashes. When I just try the command to do the recording I get:

jay@cochrane:~$ python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N -S “arecord -c 2 -f cd -t wav voice.wav” localhost:0
Using pygame 1.6
open /dev/sequencer: No such file or directory
usage: vnc2swf.py [-d] [-n] [-o filename] [-t {shape|video|vnc}] [-e encoding] [-N] [-C clipping] [-r framerate] [-S subprocess] [-P pwdfile] [host[:display] [port]]
jay@cochrane:~$

Anyone know how to fix this?

Jay

Comment by Jay MacDonald — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
Hi Jay - Try the following command instead (it doesn’t include the option for sound input, but is more compatible across distros):

x11vnc -localhost -viewonly -wait 10 -defer 10 & python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N -S localhost:0

I hope that works

Comment by J_K9 — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
I was able to make that work (note: remove the -S as well), however I do want to record sound for a demo.

Oddly enough when I just run “arecord -c 2 -f cd -t wav voice.wav” it records fine.

Is it a pygame setting or something?

Jay

Comment by Jay MacDonald — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
great tutorial man!

Comment by Fadi — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Debian GNU/Linux
Jay - It looks like it is a pygame setting, as it is trying to communicate with /dev/sequencer, which is not in the script.. So it must be a setting in pygame’s conf files. Have you tried ‘man pygame’ to see what comes up? There should be something there explaining what to do (or, something along the lines, at least). You could always add the sound later, by recording it separately (using arecord) and then adding it to the swf with a flash editor.
Let me know if you manage to fix it
Fadi - Thank you!

Comment by J_K9 — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Istanbul recorder works as well (On Ubuntu look in the Add Remove Applications applet…I am making a movie of this posting as I write this..and as a bonus it saces the video as an ogg theora file, nice and Linux friendly (and no need for flash, a no-no under 64-bit anything)…just an idea….

Nice hack though, I do like the thought that went into it (nice thinking outside the box)…

Comment by Jeff Cobb — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Have you considered “wink”? I found this little tool when I needed to provide a tutorial. It works on
multiple platforms. I installed it on my Fedora desktop. Should work on any modern Linux with GTK 2.4 or
higher. It also creates “swf” files. Here’s the link:

http://www.debugmode.com/wink/download.php

Comment by Andrew Kornak — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Fedora Linux
And with all the searching I did on this, I didn’t find either of those two apps.. Heh!

Thank you both for letting me know about those - I have installed Istanbul via Synaptic, and it does exactly what I was trying to accomplish.. That serves me right for not searching the repositories either!

Nice hack though, I do like the thought that went into it (nice thinking outside the box)…

Thanks… This just emphasis how great FOSS is - there’s always a workaround, no matter how complex

Comment by J_K9 — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Let’s also not forget Cinelerra. It can do screencaptures in MPEG or Quicktime and more.

http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3

Forget the flash!

Comment by mzilikazi — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Debian GNU/Linux
Ah well.. They say you learn something new every day, right?

Comment by J_K9 — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
This blog is for the birds. It doesn’t have any specifics or more details for variuos distros.

Has any one tried it on Kubuntu 6.06 LTS?

adept can’t find x11vnc, so I downloaded x11vnc-0.8.1. gcc was not installed, so I installed it.
When I run ./configure it give me the following error

#./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install… /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane… yes
checking for gawk… no
checking for mawk… mawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)… no
checking for gcc… gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name… configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log’ for more details.

Since I am not a developer, so much for that.

This is such a hot application it should be robust and detailed enough for anyone to be able to installed and use it. Why isn’t????

Comment by Abe — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Ubuntu variants are an exception to the rule - they do not bring gcc, gPP (replace ‘PP’ with two plus signs - Wordpress is removing them), make, and other tools necessary to build the packages. I haven’t provided specifics because you can’t possibly expect me to go through every single distro and describe how to use its package manager to download x11vnc. I think you’ll find that building and installing x11vnc on most other distros will work - as I said, Ubuntu and its variants are an exception because they do not bring the tools required to build packages out of the box.

Try ’sudo apt-get install gPP’ (remember to replace the ‘PP’), and then try compiling it. Make sure you ’sudo apt-get install make’ as well.

so much for that

I’m glad you’re so appreciative of my post and the help above….

This is such a hot application it should be robust and detailed enough for anyone to be able to installed and use it. Why isn’t????

Because, although this may be a ‘hot’ application, it is another FOSS application - some of them have great, extensive documentation, and others have barely any. To be honest, x11vnc is one of the apps which have pretty good documentation. If you don’t like its interface and how difficult it is to install, then perhaps you could learn the language it is coded in and help the developers to improve it?

Comment by J_K9 — July 1, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
J_K9; Relax there is a guy like this on every forum who thinks the world owers them something. As a matter of fairly ironic fact, he represents the polar opposite of the hacker “thinking outside the box” mindset I was referring to earlier; if *he* can’t figure it out, it *must* be defective…sigh.

Comment by Jeff Cobb — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Cool, keep up the great work!

Comment by Jeff — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Fedora Linux
Jeff Cobb - Hi. Yes, I may have gone a little over the top.. I should be used to those kind of people by now. Oh well.. Letting off steam every once in a while can’t be bad for you Hehe..

Jeff - Thanks

Comment by J_K9 — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
I tried byzanz instead, and its very easy for use and install. Output is gif image.

Comment by Pavel Mlcoch — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Thanks for mentioning yet another app! Wow - I really need to improve my Googling skills

I’ve found that Istanbul Desktop Session Recorder is quite good, but slows down my laptop more than this method.. I’ll have to try the other ones as well to see how they compare

Comment by J_K9 — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Cool one. I will give this a try.

Comment by E@zyVG — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on SuSE Linux
Very cool. Will attempt to replicate (If possible)

Comment by rahl — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Fedora Linux
hmm…i got this error :

Using pygame 1.7.1release
usage: vnc2swf.py [-d] [-n] [-o filename] [-t {shape|video|vnc}] [-e encoding] [-N] [-C clipping] [-r framerate] [-S subprocess] [-P pwdfile] [host[:display] [port]]
FFmpeg version SVN-rUNKNOWN, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
configuration: –prefix=/usr –mandir=/usr/share/man –libdir=/usr/lib –enable-shared –enable-mp3lame –enable-libogg –enable-vorbis –enable-theora –enable-faad –enable-faac –enable-xvid –enable-x264 –enable-a52 –enable-pp –enable-gpl –enable-gprof –enable-amr_nb –enable-amr_wb
libavutil version: 49.0.0
libavcodec version: 51.9.0
libavformat version: 50.4.0
built on Jul 1 2006 11:34:46, gcc: 4.1.0 (SUSE Linux)
voice.wav: I/O error occured
Usually that means that input file is truncated and/or corrupted.
Using pygame 1.7.1release
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/home/hikmah/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py”, line 234, in ?
if __name__ == “__main__”: main(sys.argv[1:])
File “/home/hikmah/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py”, line 153, in main
fp = file(v, ‘rb’)
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ‘voice.mp3′
mv: cannot stat `/home/hikmah/tutorial1.swf’: No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove `/home/hikmah/voice.wav’: No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove `/home/hikmah/voice.mp3′: No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove `/home/hikmah/tutorial1.html’: No such file or directory

Comment by fireedo — July 2, 2006 #
Using Opera 9.00 on Linux
Eazy@VG and rahl - Thanks. I hope it works for both of you

fireedo - That’s quite odd… Try the following command (copy and paste it):

x11vnc -localhost -viewonly -wait 10 -defer 10 & python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N

Let me know if that works

Comment by J_K9 — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Linux
sweet! can i use this in mac os x?

Comment by Chad — July 2, 2006 #
Using Safari 419.3 on Mac OS X
[…] HOW TO: Record Videos Of Your Desktop - Great idea [via digg] […]

Pingback by rohun’s blog » Blog Archive » Links for 7/02/06 — July 2, 2006 #
Using WordPress 2.0.3
Thanks

Comment by F. H. — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Cool, very cool.

Comment by knithx — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3 on Debian GNU/Linux
Hi,
Do you mind if i translate the article and publish it in my blog? Of course i would give the credit to you and link back to your blog; I would like to have this in Spanish, so others who dont speak English can have a look at it. Also i would adapt it to Arch Linux ( www.archlinux.org ) as that is the distribution i use.

Regards,
Leonardo

Comment by Leonardo — July 2, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Linux
Chad - You can, but you would have to use a different VNC server for it (and thus the script would need to be modified to work). Any VNC server compatible with OS X will be fine.. Then, take a look at the current commands (either in the script or the single command in comment 29), and modify them to suit your VNC server. It *should* work - please let us know how it turns out.
Oh, and you will probably need to install Python on OS X

F.H. & knithx - Thanks! I’m glad you liked it

Leonardo - Claro que si! I’m bilingual Of course you may translate it.

Comment by J_K9 — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Linux
I’m quite doubtful that x11vnc will work properly with XGL due to the new rendering model. But I’d be pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong.

Comment by Robert — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Linux
hey thanks man. This is a really easy setup, unlike the ones I’ve found around the web. Great Job!

Comment by Rajiv Battula — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Windows XP
Robert,
x11vnc does work with XGL only not as smooth as one would hope

Comment by Gargoyle99 — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Linux
[…] It was until today that I was a man unaware of the ease at which a Flash video of a Linux desktop running X can be made! But fear not, I will tell you about the article I read that informed me of this task of ease. […]

Pingback by Savadeep Speaks! » So easy is it to make a Linux desktop video! — July 3, 2006 #
Using WordPress MU
Ironic that you haven’t made a recording of the steps you took to install and possibly run it

Comment by jldugger — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Windows XP
Ubuntu 6.0.6 base install, needed just a couple of tweaks to get this working:

1) sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

2) change double quotes in vidtut.sh to single quote..
From:
“arecord -c 2 -f cd -t wav voice.wav”
To:
‘arecord -c 2 -f cd -t wav voice.wav’

Pretty cool tool. Thanks.

Comment by Doug — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Thanks man this looks like it will do the trick for what I need but I am havin a little problem.
FC4 uptodate w/ X11vnc from yum install….. probably my problem….
I tried the script and the code you posted for Eazy and rahl
x11vnc -localhost -viewonly -wait 10 -defer 10 & python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N

Both out put the same stuff it starts the X11 server and then

03/07/2006 14:59:10 Default visual ID: 0×23
03/07/2006 14:59:11 Read initial data from X display into framebuffer.
03/07/2006 14:59:11 X display :0.0 is 32bpp depth=24 true color

FrameBuffer Info:
width: 1280
height: 1024
scaled_width: 1280
scaled_height: 1024
indexed_color: 0
bits_per_pixel: 32
depth: 24
red_mask: 0×00ff0000 00000000111111110000000000000000
green_mask: 0×0000ff00 00000000000000001111111100000000
blue_mask: 0×000000ff 00000000000000000000000011111111
red: max: 255 shift: 16
green: max: 255 shift: 8
blue: max: 255 shift: 0
mainfb_bytes_per_line: 5120
rfb_fb_bytes_per_line: 5120
format: ZPixmap
byte_order: LSBFirst
bitmap_pad: 32
bitmap_unit: 32
bitmap_bit_order: LSBFirst
main_fb: 0xb7ab8008
rfb_fb: 0xb7ab8008

03/07/2006 14:59:11 setting up 32 cursors…
03/07/2006 14:59:11 done.
03/07/2006 14:59:11 Autoprobing TCP port
03/07/2006 14:59:11 Autoprobing selected port 5902
03/07/2006 14:59:11 created 40 tile_row shm polling images.
03/07/2006 14:59:11 fb read rate: 19 MB/sec
03/07/2006 14:59:11 screen setup finished.
03/07/2006 14:59:11
03/07/2006 14:59:11 WARNING: You are running x11vnc WITHOUT a password. See
03/07/2006 14:59:11 WARNING: the warning message printed above for more info.
03/07/2006 14:59:11
03/07/2006 14:59:11 The VNC desktop is localhost:2
PORT=5902

ps -ef | grep vnc shows this…
erin 26899 1 0 14:59 pts/14 00:00:00 x11vnc -localhost -viewonly -wait 10 -defer 10

and I can telnet to 5902 and get a little output so I know it is running but I never get teh graphic to start the recording???
can I issue a command to make it happen? or is there a typical reason that the small GUI doesnt pop up?　

Thanks
E./

Comment by eredicatorX — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.8 on Fedora Linux
x11vnc -localhost -viewonly -wait 10 -defer 10 & python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N

The only word that I can say is WOW!!!……..it’s now work…..thanx a lot and this is really nice and great job…..well done

Comment by fireedo — July 3, 2006 #
Using Opera 9.00 on Linux
Nice tutorial!

Comment by Jon — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Linux
You can also host your .swf videos for free on our site: http://www.eefoof.com/ Free hosting for flash, videos, images, etc. And we share ad revenue with uploaders.

Comment by Matt Farley — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Windows XP
Awesome, thanks!

Comment by xaez — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Mac OS X
Nice article.. I submitted this to Digg.com..

Comment by Gerald Cortez — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Windows XP
Robert - What Gargoyle99 said. It works, but it was quite choppy when I tried it on my laptop - I’ll try it on my desktop at home and see what happens
Rajiv Battula - Thanks! Glad it helped
jldugger - I would have made a video of this.. But, my laptop isn’t powerful enough to make it as smooth as I would have liked. Hehe..

Doug - Thank you for the tweaks! I was wondering what was wrong I’ll add them in as soon as possible - thanks.

eredicatorX - Hi. This may sound stupid, but are you sure you’ve extracted pyvnc2swf and placed it in your home directory? Please show the full output (’./vidtut.sh > output’ will do it), because what you’ve posted looks like what we get when it works
fireedo, Jon and xaez - Thanks for the kind compliments.

Matt Farley - Thanks for posting about eefoof.. I’ll try to help spread the word!

And, finally, thanks Gerald - it looks like it got onto the front page

Now that I’ve caught up with everyone’s comments… I’m going back to sleep

Comment by J_K9 — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
I notice there is a typo …

In the script as shown in the article we have this line:

python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N -S “arecord -c 2 -f cd -t wav voice.wav” localhost:0

==> doesn’t work. The two quotation marks don’t seem right.

But when I replaced the quotation marks ( ” ) with simple hyphens ( ‘ ) it seemed to work:

python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N -S ‘arecord -c 2 -f cd -t wav voice.wav’ localhost:0

Regards,

DJM.

Comment by DJM. — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on SuSE Linux
Thanks DJM. - Doug also mentioned that, and I have just changed it

Comment by J_K9 — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Nice

Comment by James Hall — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Hi!

Comment by Herd — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4 on Debian GNU/Linux
“eredicatorX - Hi. This may sound stupid, but are you sure you’ve extracted pyvnc2swf and placed it in your home directory? Please show the full output (’./vidtut.sh > output’ will do it), because what you’ve posted looks like what we get when it works”

Yep did this tar -xvzf downloads/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2.tar.gz while in my home dir and it created this folder…. pyvnc2swf-0.8.2

Yep cept the line at the top I got that said I needed to install pygame and tkinter …. well not install just it could not find them. I installed them and then I got this

built on Apr 1 2006 03:02:33, gcc: 4.0.2 20051125 (Red Hat 4.0.2-8)
voice.wav: I/O error occured
Usually that means that input file is truncated and/or corrupted.
Using pygame 1.7.1release
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/home/erin/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py”, line 234, in ?
if __name__ == “__main__”: main(sys.argv[1:])
File “/home/erin/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py”, line 153, in main
fp = file(v, ‘rb’)
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ‘voice.mp3′
mv: cannot stat `/home/erin/tutorial1.swf’: No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove `/home/erin/voice.wav’: No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove `/home/erin/voice.mp3′: No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove `/home/erin/tutorial1.html’: No such file or directory

When I run the one liner of code you gave the program opened but …. it opens now and I can use the program…

Thanks this is going to be very helpfull.
Regards,
E./

Comment by eredicatorX — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.8 on Fedora Linux
I’ve always wondered how they do this.

Thanks a lot

Comment by web design uk — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Windows XP
Nice, thanks a lot, I was looking for something like Camtasia for Linux for making video tutorials.
^_^

Comment by ppma — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla 1.8.1a3 on Linux
[…] Save this script as ‘vidtut.sh‘ in your home directory. Not only will this script record a video of your desktop, it will also record any input via a microphone and add it as sound to the resulting flash file. If you don’t want it to record audio input, simply mute MIC input in your sound manager - alternatively, you can use the command I’ve mentioned in comment #29 beneath this post. […]

Pingback by El Weblog de macada » Archivio » Graba videos de tu escritorio en flash!! — July 3, 2006 #
Using WordPress 2.0.3
[…] Have you ever wanted to take a video of your sleek desktop, with your customised icons, window manager, GKrellM, and whatnot? Or make a video of cool XGL effects? Or a video tutorial to teach a few friends how to use a certain application? If you have, then this tutorial is for you. read more | digg story […]

Pingback by HOW TO: Record Videos Of Your Desktop at LifeParticles.com — July 3, 2006 #
Using WordPress 2.0.3
[…] Have you ever wanted to take a video of your sleek desktop, with your customised icons, window manager, GKrellM, and whatnot? Or make a video of cool XGL effects? Or a video tutorial to teach a few friends how to use a certain application? If you have, then this tutorial is for you. Because Linux does not have a native screen recording application (well, it has xvidcap, but that can be difficult to set up), we have to use a workaround - namely using VNC to transmit the data of our X server to ourselves. I won�t bore you with the gory details, as there are many other sites which can do this for me - and they�re only a Google search away. This method will create a Flash video of your desktop, which you can then edit to your liking. What will I need for this?Not much (but don�t download any of the extra apps yet):A Linux distribution, with an X server. I am using Ubuntu 6.06 TLS in this example;The latest version of x11vnc;The latest version of pyvnc2swf (the Python version). If you have Ubuntu or another distro with fairly large repositories, installing x11vnc is a breeze. All I had to do to install it was: $ sudo apt-get install x11vnc If the above command (or the one for your distro) worked, and x11vnc is now installed, please continue to the next step: Extract pyvnc2swf - if not, carry on reading. It looks like you will need to build x11vnc from source, as your distro does not have it in its repositories. First of all, download the latest version of it. Then, extract it using the following command: $ tar xzf x11vnc-versionnumber.tar.gz Now, let�s install it. $ cd x11vnc-versionnumber/ $ ./configure $ make $ make install You�re done! For the detailed guide visit : HOW TO: Record Videos Of Your Desktop at J_K9 @ Linux […]

Pingback by HOW TO: Record Videos Of Your Desktop - TechEnclave — July 3, 2006 #
Using Unknown browser
eredicatorX - “When I run the one liner of code you gave the program opened but …. it opens now and I can use the program…”

So you got it working then? Glad to hear it

Comment by J_K9 — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Como gravar um vídeo em flash do seu desktop

Se você já teve interesse de gravar um vídeo demonstrando algum aspecto do seu desktop ou mesmo um tutorial em vídeo de algum aplicativo, veja este interessante artigo explicando como gravar um vídeo em flash do seu desktop Linux, usando o VNC e um

Trackback by BR-Linux.org — July 3, 2006 #
Using Drupal
Something else I noticed … And it’s a potential security hole, IMHO.

Your script leaves the “x11vnc” running after the recording is done. And in my case on SuSE 10.0 “x11vnc” complains about there being no password set (which happens to be true in my case …).

In other words:

After recording is done that “x11vnc” process which is still running could invite potential local attackers (other users on the same machine) to try out a VNC connection onto your session … Look mum, no password!

The parameter “-localhost” does limit such connection attempts to local users, but still this is no real safety. IP addresses can be faked and other local users could do a lot of BS to your desktop while you are away …

Probably it would be a good idea to change above script so that “x11vnc” forces the user to specify and use a password before recording can be started, e.g. use the “-passwdfile” parameter somehow.

I in my case added this line at the end of the “vidtut.sh” script:

kill `pidof x11vnc`

(these are forward hyphens … you will find this above the “TAB” key on US keyboards)

The “pidof” program checks the Process-ID (PID) of “x11vnc” and returns a number, this number is then handed over to the “kill” program as argument. Result: Any running instance of “x11vnc” that belongs to you is being killed at the end of the script. Another way to do this would be the “killall” program, e.g. “killall x11vnc” …

Just to make sure nobody messes with my desktop while I am away ….

Regards,

DJM. / Switzerland, Europe

Comment by DJM — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on SuSE Linux
Very Very Cool!

Comment by Bian — July 3, 2006 #
Using K-Meleon 0.9 on Windows 2000
Hi DJM,

“Your script leaves the “x11vnc” running after the recording is done.”

I hadn’t realised… I thought it was killed once the recording was over. I should check things like that before I post..

“The parameter “-localhost” does limit such connection attempts to local users, but still this is no real safety. IP addresses can be faked and other local users could do a lot of BS to your desktop while you are away …”

IP addresses can be faked, but the average hacker would not do any damage by making the source address 127.0.0.1. And, if locking the screen with a password is not an option, or some other method of physical security (like locking the door to the room containing the PC), then you really need to rethink your physical security strategy. If a hacker has physical access to your computer, you have better things to worry about than an unpassworded VNC server running but only accepting connections from localhost
However, I see your point, and that is a good idea. I’ll test it out and add it to the tut Thanks.

Comment by J_K9 — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
> If a hacker has physical access to your computer
> you have better things to worry about than an unpassworded VNC server
> running but only accepting connections from localhost

Never underestimate the average BOFH who is hiding amongst your coworkers and oh-so-beloved “colleagues” and “friends” at your workplace and elsewhere

At my workplace we have plenty of Linux and Unix workstations and servers, and often enough plenty of people know several user account and their passwords on several machines. Usually this is no problem … But leaving an open VNC session which is connected to your desktop is an open invitation for some BOFH action

One of my “n00b” coworkers once left his desk, leaving his brand-new KDE desktop unprotected and unlocked. What we did: We took a screenshot of his desktop, then moved all the *.desktop files and icons away, we removed all KDE panels, we removed the taskbar and all the other stuff, and then replaced the wallpaper with the screenshot we had taken before. It was all just a matter of a few seconds to do that.

When he came back he wondered why oh why KDE “would not react” anymore … He didn’t realize that he was clicking on a screenshot all the time and that the icons were “dead” simply because they weren’t there anymore in the first place

After 50 or so reboots (bad bad Windows habits … A reboot doesn’t solve anything on Linux! He should have taken a look at his ~/.kde config files …) we told him to check is wallpaper …

What did he learn? He changes his password every 2 days or so and *NEVER* *EVER* leaves an open login or X11 session anywhere when he goes away.

Mission accomplished

DJM. / Switzerland, Europe

Comment by DJM — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on SuSE Linux
Very nice. This will come in handy when recording some video of my OpenGL applications for class.

Thanks.

Comment by Andy — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Windows XP
Great tutorial, my only concern is how to change to lower the screen resolution in x11vnc, my output swf gets really slow…

Comment by JP — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
[…] Complete Story […]

Pingback by المعرفة للجميع » Record Videos Of Your Desktop — July 3, 2006 #
Using WordPress MU
Using different screen resolutions without messing up your X11 config:

You don’t have to use “x11vnc” if you don’t want to … I mean, you can just as well use a “real” VNC session running locally on your machine somehow somewhere.

Let’s assume you have the package “tightvnc” on your machine (other packages such as “realvnc” should work in a similar way):

First, define your VNC password via the “vncpasswd” command.

Now there should be a new folder in your home directory: ~/.vnc
Let’s go in there: “cd .vnc”

Do a “ls -al” and check what files you got there. There should be a file named “xstartup”. Mine looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
# xsetroot -solid grey
# xterm -geometry 80×24+10+10 -ls -title “$VNCDESKTOP Desktop” &
# twm &
wmaker &
# xfwm4 &
# openbox &
# blackbox &

As you can tell this script would launch the “WindowMaker” environment; but other environments are available as well, I just need to add / replace the “#” comments.

So, now: When I launch VNC I can specify the size of the screen I want:

vncserver -depth 16 -geometry 800×600

Above command would give me a virtual X11 session with a 800×600 resolution, and due to my settings in “~/.vnc/xstartup” (see above) I’d have “WindowMaker” as my GUI environment, and not KDE or GNOME (you can specify this as you wish, just comment / uncomment the appropriate lines above). The resolution can be randomly picked, e.g. you could also specify unusual stuff such as “960×500″ … whatever size you need or want.

Now, as for recording videos: All that is needed is a slight variation to the original script that was posted here. Let’s call it “vidtut_vnc1.sh”:

#!/bin/sh
#

python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N -S “arecord -c 2 -f cd -t wav voice.wav” localhost:1

ffmpeg -i voice.wav -ar 22050 voice.mp3
python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py -o tutorial1.swf -a voice.mp3 tutorial.swf
mv ~/tutorial1.swf ~/tutorial.swf
rm ~/voice.wav
rm ~/voice.mp3
rm ~/tutorial1.html

So instead of connecting to your real X11 session the script above will connect to the virtual desktop “localhost:1″. Voice recording is still done locally, as the sound device is independent of the GUI.

So, let’s put it all together:

- you login to your real X11 session, e.g. KDE
- you open a terminal
- you type this command and specify a password: “vncpasswd”
- you launch VNC: “vncserver :1 -depth 16 -geometry 800×600″
- you connect to that virtual desktop: “vncviewer localhost:1″
- in that virtual environment, you open another terminal
- now launch the variation of the original script: “vidtut_vnc1.sh” (as listed above)

==> Voila, you are recording in a smaller / different desktop environment, whatever you specified as “-geometry” for the “vncserver” command. And you didn’t have to mess with your real X11 configuration files.

PS: As you can tell I *LOVE* this stuff and I’ve been playing around with it quite a lot

Regards,

DJM.

Comment by DJM — July 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on SuSE Linux
[…] HOW TO: Record Videos Of Your Desktop at J_K9 @ Linux (tags: screencasting screencast ubuntu) […]

Pingback by Like Your Work » Blog Archive » links for 2006-07-04 — July 4, 2006 #
Using WordPress 2.1
Good tutorial. Wilh all of the others referenced, maybe you should consider reviewing them all?

Comment by sks78 — July 4, 2006 #
Using Safari 419.3 on Mac OS X
You may want you check out ScreenKast at http://sourceforge.net/projects/screenkast
It’s brand new and is the first real screen capturing program for GNU/Linux.
Moreover, you can use it to share your captured tutorials on http://captorials.com

Comment by beligum — July 4, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
[…] JK_9 Linux site walks you through the steps using Ubuntu. […]

Pingback by Sidnak » Blog Archive » Record Videos Of You Linux Desktop — July 4, 2006 #
Using WordPress 2.0.3
Great tutorial, easy to follow. Definatly a good way to record videos. The comments are also a good read for additional tips and tricks.

Comment by Martin — July 4, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Windows XP
Hi
I am using your solution and it is workung fine. I would like to translate it to german and post it on my webite with credits and link to you and this site. Do you mind offering a german version?
Many Thanks Hannes

Comment by Hannes — July 6, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on RedHat Linux
Hannes - Go ahead!

Comment by J_K9 — July 7, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Linux
I get :
ulefr01@franz4-ubuntu:~$ ./vidtut.sh
###############################################################
#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@#
#@ @#
#@ ** WARNING ** WARNING ** WARNING ** WARNING ** @#
#@ @#
#@ YOU ARE RUNNING X11VNC WITHOUT A PASSWORD!! @#
#@ @#
#@ This means anyone with network access to this computer @#
#@ will be able to easily view and control your desktop. @#
#@ @#
#@ >>> If you did not mean to do this Press CTRL-C now!! #0.0
Press [q] to stop encoding
size= 68kB time=8.7 bitrate= 64.0kbits/s
video:0kB audio:68kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%
Using PIL 1.1.5
Reading mp3 file: voice.mp3…
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/home/ulefr01/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py”, line 234, in ?
if __name__ == “__main__”: main(sys.argv[1:])
File “/home/ulefr01/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py”, line 155, in main
info.reg_mp3blocks(fp)
File “/home/ulefr01/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/movie.py”, line 106, in reg_mp3blocks
MP3Reader(self.mp3).read_mp3file(fp, length, nsamples, seeksamples)
File “/home/ulefr01/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/mp3.py”, line 174, in read_mp3file
assert (h & 0×00060000L) == 0×00020000L, ‘!Layer3′
AssertionError: !Layer3

Comment by ulefr01 — July 9, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
redone , because it was incomplete
ulefr01@franz4-ubuntu:~$ ./vidtut.sh
###############################################################
#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@#
#@ @#
#@ ** WARNING ** WARNING ** WARNING ** WARNING ** @#
#@ @#
#@ YOU ARE RUNNING X11VNC WITHOUT A PASSWORD!! @#
#@ @#
#@ This means anyone with network access to this computer @#
#@ will be able to easily view and control your desktop. @#
#@ @#
#@ >>> If you did not mean to do this Press CTRL-C now!! #0.0
Press [q] to stop encoding
size= 68kB time=8.7 bitrate= 64.0kbits/s
video:0kB audio:68kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%
Using PIL 1.1.5
Reading mp3 file: voice.mp3…
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/home/ulefr01/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py”, line 234, in ?
if __name__ == “__main__”: main(sys.argv[1:])
File “/home/ulefr01/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py”, line 155, in main
info.reg_mp3blocks(fp)
File “/home/ulefr01/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/movie.py”, line 106, in reg_mp3blocks
MP3Reader(self.mp3).read_mp3file(fp, length, nsamples, seeksamples)
File “/home/ulefr01/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/mp3.py”, line 174, in read_mp3file
assert (h & 0×00060000L) == 0×00020000L, ‘!Layer3′
AssertionError: !Layer3

Comment by ulefr01 — July 9, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux
Hey folks!
Use the easy one : Istanbul. It rocks!

Comment by Lucas — July 31, 2006 #
Using Epiphany 2.14 on Ubuntu Linux
There is NO reliable and easy way to record your desktop in Linux today… or at least in (k)ubuntu. (or maybe there is but I don’t find it)

1) xvidcap crashed on me all the time and creates video that can’t be viewed in Windows without extra codecs. Plus video speed is crapy, going too fast with some settings and loosing frames. Sound does not work properly, at least in KDE with arts.

2) istanbul has the right type of GUI but generates yellow mouse cursor rubbish and poor image quality. Plus video speed is also crapy, going too fast and loosing frames.

3) screenkast is way to complex and requires yoy to install an vncserver, even if you don’t want to export your desktop. Way too complex GUI and no sound support.

4) This pyvnc2swf is ok for web presentations, but using a SWF out put format? I want to have a mpeg (divx mp4a or somthing I can change with ffmpeg).

Is there a way not to depend on windows (not even in ‘postproduction’) to grab some screen activity to a simple video (not flash) file?

Comment by kubunter — August 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.5 on Ubuntu Linux
Have you tried Cinelerra? Apparently that records to .mov and MPEG formats, and more. If not, try one of the other ones mentioned here which record to a format editable in a Linux video editor.

Comment by J_K9 — August 4, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6 on Windows XP
I did try cinelarra… but did not want to compile under my kubuntu installation (I mean configure was ok, but the compilation end up in error half way)

I am using a patched version of ffmpeg, I found instructions here:
http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/06/

I found a deb package, but now I only find how to generate it:
http://www.howforge.com/rebuilding-ffmpeg-to-create-screencast-in-ubuntu

Comment by kubunter — August 6, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.5 on Ubuntu Linux
for some reason, my swf comes out REALLY choppy, as in its missing alot of frames. I followed the instructions verbatim and ran the script and didn’t get the GUI box that I’m supposed to. Instead, I ran this:

x11vnc -localhost -viewonly -wait 10 -defer 10 & python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N

And got the GUI and it created the tutorial.swf and tutorial.html but it comes out really choppy. Can anyone put the finger on what I’m doing wrong? Thanks in advance

Comment by aj — August 9, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Ubuntu Linux
How powerful is the machine you are doing this on? It could be quite choppy if you’re using a laptop or desktop which isn’t very powerful. That could be the cause of the choppiness

Comment by J_K9 — August 11, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6 on Windows XP
J_K9 - i have an amd 3400 (3.0 ghz) with 1gb ram and a 7200rpm harddrive. its not the hardware. i also have the latest kernel (2.6.18).

Comment by aj — August 11, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Ubuntu Linux
aj - Hmm… Could it be the latest kernel that has caused a problem? I don’t know. Try removing x11vnc completely and reinstalling it. I’m really not sure what it is - sorry
Try one of the other players that have been mentioned, and please let us know whether the choppiness persists there or not

Comment by J_K9 — August 12, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6 on Windows XP
[…] http://wolphination.com/linux/2006/06/30/how-to-record-videos-of-your-desktop/ […]

Pingback by David’s Blog » cool piece of software — August 14, 2006 #
Using WordPress 2.0.2
I have the same problem with the choppy record on my HP ZD8060US.

Im running OpenSuSE 10.1 fully updated w/ xgl/compiz & gnome

Laptop:

P4 3.2ghz
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 @ 400mhz
ATI Mobility Radeon X600 PCI Express

Comment by Mike — August 28, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
FYI, it looks like the Assertion Error on mp3.py line 174 if from a version of ffmpeg compiled without –enable-lameMP3 support.

In other words, the wav to mp3 conversion is probably not really working. Test my playing the mp3 file with mplayer and look at what comes after “Selected audio codec:”. it should be [mad] and not [raw].

Atleast that is what I found. So, if you have another way to convert the wav file to mp3 format, use that instead of ffmeg or build ffmpeg with the mp3 support.

Comment by Doug — August 28, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
Plain beautiful. Simple and very useful.

Comment by Ed — August 29, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5 on Linux
[…] Have you ever wanted to take a video of your sleek desktop, with your customised icons, window manager, GKrellM, and whatnot? Or make a video of cool XGL effects? Or a video tutorial to teach a few friends how to use a certain application? If you have, then this tutorial is for you.read more | digg story […]

Pingback by Linux Unix » HOW TO: Record Videos Of Your Desktop — September 1, 2006 #
Using WordPress 2.0.3
I am using a site (DivvyThis.com) and am going to making tutorals on Ubuntu for my site. Just so everyone knows, I’m using dapper.

I changed the ”’s on “arecord…” and got this to work…. Just so you know! On Dapper btw.

#!/bin/sh
#
x11vnc -localhost -viewonly -wait 10 -defer 10 &
python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/vnc2swf.py -o tutorial.swf -N -S ‘arecord -c 2 -f cd -t wav voice.wav’ localhost:0
ffmpeg -i voice.wav -ar 22050 voice.mp3
python ~/pyvnc2swf-0.8.2/edit.py -o tutorial1.swf -a voice.mp3 tutorial.swf
mv ~/tutorial1.swf ~/tutorial.swf
rm ~/voice.wav
rm ~/voice.mp3
rm ~/tutorial1.html

Comment by Aubrey Island — September 23, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.5 on Ubuntu Linux
Thanks!

Comment by J_K9 — September 24, 2006 #
Using Flock 0.7.1 on Windows XP
Thanks — works strait away!
I have a question: Is it somehow possible to record only some applications ??

Comment by evelina — September 26, 2006 #
Using Epiphany 2.14 on Ubuntu Linux
Hmm… Individual applications? I don’t think so - but one of the other applications which have been mentioned might have this functionality

Comment by J_K9 — September 27, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
mine doesn’t even start.

alex@ubuntu-alex:~$ cd ~/
alex@ubuntu-alex:~$ ./vidtut.sh
###############################################################
#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@#
#@ @#
#@ ** WARNING ** WARNING ** WARNING ** WARNING ** @#
#@ @#
#@ YOU ARE RUNNING X11VNC WITHOUT A PASSWORD!! @#
#@ @#
#@ This means anyone with network access to this computer @#
#@ will be able to easily view and control your desktop. @#
#@ @#
#@ >>> If you did not mean to do this Press CTRL-C now!!

Comment by test — October 1, 2006 #
Using Opera 9.02 on Linux
When I type ./vidtut.sh in the terminal I get this output:

Comment by Louis — October 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla 1.8.1b2 on Ubuntu Linux
I get this error then I run./vidtut.sh

Comment by Louis — October 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Ubuntu Linux
I get this error then I run ./vidtut.sh:

louis@louis-laptop:~$ ./vidtut.sh
###############################################################
#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@#
#@ @#
#@ ** WARNING ** WARNING ** WARNING ** WARNING ** @#
#@ @#
#@ YOU ARE RUNNING X11VNC WITHOUT A PASSWORD!! @#
#@ @#
#@ This means anyone with network access to this computer @#
#@ will be able to easily view and control your desktop. @#
#@ @#
#@ >>> If you did not mean to do this Press CTRL-C now!!

Comment by Louis — October 3, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Ubuntu Linux
when I run the script it stops at the below & the GUI does not come up - I read the posts & I did tar it like it said - I did everything twice to be on the safe side.

wireframe: 0xff,3,0,32+8+8+8,all,0.15+0.30+5.0+0.125
wirecopy: always
scrollcopy: always
scr_area: 60000
scr_skip: ##Soffice.bin,##StarOffice
scr_inc: ##Nomatch
scr_keys: null
scr_term: null
scr_keyrep: null
scr_parms: 0+64+32+32,0.02+0.10+0.9,0.03+0.06+0.5+0.1+5.0
fixscreen: null
noxrecord: 0
grabbuster: 0
ptr_mode: 2
inputskip: 10
speeds: null
wmdt: null
debug_ptr: 0
debug_key: 0
defer: 10
waitms: 10
wait_ui: 2.00
nowait_bog: 0
slow_fb: 0.00
readtimeout: 20
take_naps: 1
sb: 60
xdamage: 1
xd_area: 20000
xd_mem: 1.000
sigpipe: null
threads: 0
fs_frac: 0.75
gaps_fill: 4
grow_fill: 3
tile_fuzz: 2
snapfb: 0
rawfb: null
pipeinput: null
gui: 0
gui_mode: null
noremote: 0
unsafe: 0
privremote: 0
safer: 0
nocmds: 0
deny_all: 0

04/10/2006 16:56:21 x11vnc version: 0.7.3 lastmod: 2005-08-07
04/10/2006 16:56:21 Using X display :0.0
04/10/2006 16:56:21
04/10/2006 16:56:21 —————— USEFUL INFORMATION ——————
04/10/2006 16:56:21 X DAMAGE available on display, using it for polling hints.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 To disable this behavior use: ‘-noxdamage’
04/10/2006 16:56:21 Wireframing: -wireframe mode is in effect for window moves.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 If this yields undesired behavior (poor response, painting04/10/2006 16:56:21 errors, etc) it may be disabled:
04/10/2006 16:56:21 - use ‘-nowf’ to disable wireframing completely.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 - use ‘-nowcr’ to disable the Copy Rectangle after the
04/10/2006 16:56:21 moved window is released in the new position.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 Also see the -help entry for tuning parameters.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 You can press 3 Alt_L’s (Left “Alt” key) in a row to
04/10/2006 16:56:21 repaint the screen, also see the -fixscreen option for
04/10/2006 16:56:21 periodic repaints.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 XFIXES available on display, resetting cursor mode
04/10/2006 16:56:21 to: ‘-cursor most’.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 to disable this behavior use: ‘-cursor arrow’
04/10/2006 16:56:21 or ‘-noxfixes’.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 using XFIXES for cursor drawing.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 GrabServer control via XTEST.
Xlib: extension “RECORD” missing on display “:0.0″.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 XKEYBOARD: all 28 “must have” keysyms accounted for.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 Not automatically switching to -xkb mode.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 If some keys still cannot be typed, try using -xkb.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 Also, remember “-remap DEAD” for accenting characters.
04/10/2006 16:56:21 ——————————————————–
04/10/2006 16:56:21
04/10/2006 16:56:21 Default visual ID: 0×23
04/10/2006 16:56:22 Read initial data from X display into framebuffer.
04/10/2006 16:56:22 X display :0.0 is 32bpp depth=24 true color

FrameBuffer Info:
width: 1280
height: 1024
scaled_width: 1280
scaled_height: 1024
indexed_color: 0
bits_per_pixel: 32
depth: 24
red_mask: 0×00ff0000 00000000111111110000000000000000
green_mask: 0×0000ff00 00000000000000001111111100000000
blue_mask: 0×000000ff 00000000000000000000000011111111
red: max: 255 shift: 16
green: max: 255 shift: 8
blue: max: 255 shift: 0
mainfb_bytes_per_line: 5120
rfb_fb_bytes_per_line: 5120
format: ZPixmap
byte_order: LSBFirst
bitmap_pad: 32
bitmap_unit: 32
bitmap_bit_order: LSBFirst
main_fb: 0xb7770008
rfb_fb: 0xb7770008

04/10/2006 16:56:22 setting up 32 cursors…
04/10/2006 16:56:22 done.
04/10/2006 16:56:22 Autoprobing TCP port
04/10/2006 16:56:22 Autoprobing selected port 5902
04/10/2006 16:56:22 created 40 tile_row shm polling images.
04/10/2006 16:56:23 fb read rate: 7 MB/sec
04/10/2006 16:56:23 screen setup finished.
04/10/2006 16:56:23
04/10/2006 16:56:23 WARNING: You are running x11vnc WITHOUT a password. See
04/10/2006 16:56:23 WARNING: the warning message printed above for more info.
04/10/2006 16:56:23
04/10/2006 16:56:23 The VNC desktop is localhost:2
PORT=590