Hi all. In this post, we will quickly cover how to start with screen recording on Linux 2022. I will use the industry-standard tool OBS studio.
Free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Download and start streaming quickly and easily on Windows, Mac or Linux.
form obsproject.com
Install
We can get OBS studio for Linux in multiple ways. If we look at official documentation from the web site, we can see that there is an official obs studio in the Manjaro repository. And yes, for this post I will use Manjaro.
First way (GUI)
Open Add/Remove Software (Pamac) and just search for OBS. If you have a fresh install of Manjaro you will have only the Official Repository (community) version for OBS which is fine for this basic purpose.
Then press the install button and the is it.
Second way (Command Line)
The second way is to open a terminal emulator of your choice, in my case because I’m using a fresh install of Manjaro I will use Konsole. First update repositories with next command:
sudo pacman -Sy
and then check for the OBS package with:
sudo pacman -Ss obs-studio
as shown in the image below:
If we check versions from the official site and Manjaro repository we can see that Manjaro one is up to date and we will not miss any patches, updates …
Let’s install OBS studio with the next command:
sudo pacman -S obs-studio
and then press y to proceed with the installation as shown in the image below:
First run
After starting OBS for the first time you will be greeted with an Auto-Configuration Wizard popup. Because this post is based only on-screen recording not streaming, in this pop up I will select the second option Optimize just for recording. Click next.
Now we need to select Base Canvas Resolution and for basic screen recording, the best option is to select Use Current resolution. For FPS or Frames per Second, the best option is to select 60, but if you have some slower PC or laptop 30 frames will be good enough, so then option Either 60 or 30, but prefer 60 is OK. Click next.
The result of your Auto Configuration will be shown like in the image below:
Take a closer look at Output Resolution and FPS. Because I was installing OBS on the laptop with integrated graphics output resolution and FPS is a bit too small, and that is something that I would like to fix. Press Apply Settings but then go to Settings. Then in settings pop up windows go to tab Video and there you can fix Output resolution and FSP. In this case, I switched output resolution to Full HD (1920×1080) and FPS to 60. This will be a bit more demanding on the laptop, but I think we will be fine.
Also, in the Output tab section Recording you can change the Recording path, change recording quality and format, select encoder.
Create Scene
In order to start with screen recording on Linux 2022, you need to create a Scene which will be recorded. Inside on scene you can have multiple item, but for this post we will add only one, full screen recording.
Go to Source section for selected scene and click on plus (add) button.
Then from the pop up window select option Screen Capture.
Add Title for Create New item in Scene and press OK.
Select Screen (if you have multi screen monitor setup) and if you want you can crop your screen as wall in this tab. Select Capture Cursor and press OK.
And that is it now you have functional screen recording in Linux and you can start making YouTube videos and tutorials.
Final words
Screen recording in Linux is very strait forward when you are using OBS studio. I’m sure that there are a lot of other free and open source alternatives to OBS but in my experience I never had to search for one. Please comment down bellow and check out my other Linux Manjaro content: