How to create a screencast on linux

RecordMyDesktop is a tool to create screencasts in Linux easily. A screencast is a video capture of your desktop – a video equivalent of a screenshot.

Install RecordMyDesktop

You can install RecordMyDesktop in Red Hat/Fedora systems using the command…

yum install recordmydesktop

For debian/ubuntu systems, I am guessing that the package name does not change(can anyone confirm this?). The command in this case is…

apt-get install recordmydesktop

Creating a Screencast

First start the application – that’s in Menu > Multimedia > gtk-recordMyDesktop.

There will be a small image of your desktop inside this application – drag a rectangle inside this preview area to select the record area. Once the selection is made, there will be a bigger rectangle on your screen highlighting the record area. Only the space within this area will be captured.

Now press the Record button to begin your recording. You will notice that you have a new icon in the system bar – something like this…

When this icon is a gray square, that means its recording. You can end the recording by left clicking on this icon. This show a new window that will show the status of encoding of the captured video. Depending on the size and length of the captured video (and your processor speed), this might take a long time.

Once this process is completed, you will be shown the main window once again. Now click on the ‘Save As’ button to save the file as a ogg Theora video file.

That’s it – you have created your first linux screencast! Congratulations!

Feel free to play around in the application – and make some screencasts. One you have done that, upload it to youtube – and post the URL in the comments.

A Screencast

Here is my first screencast. A screencast that shows you how to create a screencast using recordMyDesktop. The background music is ‘Recursion’ by Michael David Crawford – I thought it was appropriate.

According to wikipedia, a screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration. Now, how is it different from a screenshot? A Screenshot is just a photo-capture of your current screen state, whereas a screencast is a video-capture of your current desktop session. In this article we will show you how to make a screencast and how you could get more productive. We will be using a screencasting software called Istanbul for this purpose.

As the istanbul Gnome project website puts it, “Istanbul is a desktop session recorder for the Free Desktop. It records your session into an ogg theora video file.” In fact all the screencasts feature here at Digitizor Tech-Show are made using this fine tool (Istanbul).

How to install Istanbul?

» Fedora 10 has Istanbul installed in it by default. In fact Istanbul was listed as one of the new features in Fedora 10 under the category desktop recording. Anyways, if you want to install Istanbul in a Fedora system, then issue the following command in a terminal as root:

» Ubuntu / Debian: To install Istanbul in a Debian or an Ubuntu system, issue the following command in a terminal as root:

» Any other linux system (using the sources): Install it using the following commands:

If you are installing from the sources make sure that you have the following dependencies installed: GStreamer 0.10, Gst-plugins-base 0.10, PyGTK 2.6, Gnome Python Extras >= 2.11.3, Gst-python 0.10, python-xlib.

Using Istanbul: You can start Istanbul from the command line by just typing in istanbul in a terminal and hitting enter. You can also start it from Applications > Sound & Video > Istanbul Desktop Session Recorder while in GNOME. You can find Istanbul in Audio/Video under KDE. When you start Istanbul, a red circular dot will appear at the taskbar. Right click on it for options like recording pointer, selecting area to record, and record sound (you can add your voice for directions according to what you show in the screencast).

As a shortcut, you can just left-click on the Red Circular Dot button to start the Desktop Recording and again click on it to stop the recording. A dialog box will pop-up which will ask you for the file name to be saved to. You should see our screen cast below for a clear picture of what we just said:

Some notable problems are that the theora encoder which is the main plugin behind istanbul takes up a lot of CPU power and may cause your system to behave a little sluggish while recording a screencast. Things you can do to reduce this effect by using libtheora 1.0alpha6 or greater, recording at a lower width and height and by selecting a smaller part of the screen.

You can also start the screencasting right from the terminal. Suppose you want to record a screencast along with the mouse pointer and sound and save the cast to new.ogg then type in the following command:

For more options, you can use the command istanbul -h at a terminal. In our forthcoming articles we will be covering Screencasting on Windows systems and also Screencasting on Linux using another tool called byzanz.

Screencasting is one of the easiest ways to make and share videos. With Screencast-O-Matic , you can make professional-quality videos, even if you have no experience.

So what is a screencast? It’s a video recording of your device’s screen. Screencasts are a popular communication tool in many industries because they provide an easy way to communicate, educate, and sell ideas.

This handy guide contains all the tips you need to start making top-notch screencasts today.

Create Your Screencast in 3 Easy Steps

1. Record your video

Ready to make your screencast? Start by opening up the Screen Recorder . Then follow these tips to make the best video possible:

Make a quick outline

You’ll save yourself a lot of time if you plan what you’re going to say before hitting record. You could make a simple outline of the points you want to hit, or for a more concise video, try making a script.

Screencast-O-Matic’s Scripted Recordings feature lets you import a script, or type one from scratch. Then you can record your narration section-by-section, following along with your script.

Minimize distractions

If it’s visible on your screen, it will show up in your screencast. Before recording, head into your computer settings and temporarily disable all desktop notifications so they don’t interrupt your video. Also, remove any extra windows, desktop icons, and distracting wallpapers from your screen.

Background noise and clutter are also big distractions, so be careful to record in a clean and quiet area. Try to pick a room with carpet, as hard floors can cause an echo.

Adjust your microphone

Keep your microphone still, and stay the same distance from it throughout your recording. Even moving a few inches from the microphone can affect the volume in your final video.

Be conversational

Screencasts don’t have to be overly formal. Try to relax and speak in a calm and conversational tone. It may help to imagine you’re talking to a friend or colleague face-to-face.

Use the pause button

There’s no need to record your screencast all in one take. Instead, work in sections, recording one chunk at a time. Hit the pause button after every few lines to give yourself time to rehearse the next section. Then continue recording when you’re relaxed and ready.

2. Refine and edit your video

Once you’re done recording, it’s time to edit. The Video Editor enables you to fix any mistakes made during your recording, as well as add elements like music, photos, and animations for a polished flair.

Follow these tips for a smooth editing process:

Plan your edits

Before you actually make any edits, take a minute to watch your whole video, and take note of all the changes you want to make. Note the timecode for each edit, so you can find your place easily.

You’ll also want to make sure you have all your media assets in one folder so you can quickly get to them while you are editing.

Trim and cut your video

Next, trim the beginning and end of your video to remove dead space. Then cut any pauses or awkward silences you notice.

Cover up mistakes

There’s no need to re-record simply because an image failed to load or your video lagged. You can fix these issues with the Overlay Tool . It lets you add pictures, slides, additional video clips, and more to your recordings. Just import your media and place it in your video to cover up mistakes.

Keep it simple

Your videos don’t need to be fancy to be effective. Just stay focused on your message and keep it simple. Pick one or two transitions you like, use one style for your text callouts, and add pictures or extra video clips if they help you make your point. That’s all you need to keep your audience engaged.

3. Save and publish your video

You’re almost there! It’s finally time to share your video with the world. Here’s how:

Save as a video file

We always recommend saving your screencast as a video file, or mp4. That’s because these files are easiest to view on all devices. You can also upload them directly to social media without any hassle.

Connect your social sharing websites

With Screencast-O-Matic, you can instantly share your videos to sites like YouTube, Vimeo, or Google Drive. Just sign in through the account you’d like to share to, and click “share.”

Welcome feedback from your audience

Encourage viewers to comment on your videos and share their feedback with you. Your audience’s insights can help make your future videos more effective.

Plus if you share your video on YouTube, those comments will drive up your engagement. This makes your video more likely to show up in search results.

Get started with Screencast-O-Matic

Now that you know how to make a quality screencast, you’re ready to record. Remember: mistakes will happen, but that’s okay! With this guide, you’re already well on your way to screencasting success.

Click here to print the full infographic: How to create a screencast in 3 easy steps

Updated May 30, 2020

Have you ever faced the situation where you perform a long-running task on a remote machine, and suddenly your connection drops, the SSH session is terminated, and your work is lost. Well, it has happened to all of us at some point, hasn’t it? Luckily, there is a utility called screen that allows us to resume the sessions.

Introduction #

Screen or GNU Screen is a terminal multiplexer. In other words, it means that you can start a screen session and then open any number of windows (virtual terminals) inside that session. Processes running in Screen will continue to run when their window is not visible even if you get disconnected.

Install Linux GNU Screen #

The screen package is pre-installed on most Linux distros nowadays. You can check if it is installed on your system by typing:

If you don’t have screen installed on your system, you can easily install it using the package manager of your distro.

Install Linux Screen on Ubuntu and Debian #

Install Linux Screen on CentOS and Fedora #

Starting Linux Screen #

To start a screen session, simply type screen in your console:

This will open a screen session, create a new window, and start a shell in that window.

Now that you have opened a screen session, you can get a list of commands by typing:

Starting Named Session #

Named sessions are useful when you run multiple screen sessions. To create a named session, run the screen command with the following arguments:

It’s always a good idea to choose a descriptive session name.

Working with Linux Screen Windows #

When you start a new screen session, it creates a single window with a shell in it.

You can have multiple windows inside a Screen session.

To create a new window with shell type Ctrl+a c , the first available number from the range 0. 9 will be assigned to it.

Below are some most common commands for managing Linux Screen Windows:

• Ctrl+a c Create a new window (with shell)
• Ctrl+a ” List all window
• Ctrl+a 0 Switch to window 0 (by number )
• Ctrl+a A Rename the current window
• Ctrl+a S Split current region horizontally into two regions
• Ctrl+a | Split current region vertically into two regions
• Ctrl+a tab Switch the input focus to the next region
• Ctrl+a Ctrl+a Toggle between the current and previous region
• Ctrl+a Q Close all regions but the current one
• Ctrl+a X Close the current region

Detach from Linux Screen Session #

You can detach from the screen session at any time by typing:

The program running in the screen session will continue to run after you detach from the session.

Reattach to a Linux Screen #

To resume your screen session use the following command:

In case you have multiple screen sessions running on your machine, you will need to append the screen session ID after the r switch.

To find the session ID list the current running screen sessions with:

If you want to restore screen 10835.pts-0, then type the following command:

Customize Linux Screen #

When screen is started, it reads its configuration parameters from /etc/screenrc and

/.screenrc if the file is present. We can modify the default Screen settings according to our preferences using the .screenrc file.

Here is a sample

/.screenrc configuration with customized status line and few additional options:

Basic Linux Screen Usage #

Below are the most basic steps for getting started with screen:

1. On the command prompt, type screen .
2. Run the desired program.
3. Use the key sequence Ctrl-a + Ctrl-d to detach from the screen session.
4. Reattach to the screen session by typing screen -r .

Conclusion #

In this tutorial, you learned how to use Gnu Screen. Now you can start using the Screen utility and create multiple screen windows from a single session, navigate between windows, detach and resume screen sessions and personalize your screen terminal using the .screenrc file.

There’s lots more to learn about Gnu Screen at Screen User’s Manual page.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment.

1. How to Create Screencast with recordMyDesktop in ubuntu 9.04 By UbuntuGuide

There is a desktop session recorder for Linux called recordMyDesktop that attemps to be easy to use, yet also effective at it’s primary task.recordMyDesktop offers also the ability to record audio through ALSA, OSS or the JACK audio server.

To install recordMyDesktop

Go to System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager,type recordmydesktop in Quicksearch field.

Right click gtk-recordmydesktop,select mark for installation.Mark to be install in next window.

Then click Apply button to start install recordmydesktop.

2. How to create a screencast in Fedora or Ubuntu – Record My Desktop

Screencasts of your desktop are very useful in demonstrating programs and for video tutorials. “recordMyDesktop” is a very easy to use tool for creating screencast under linux. By using recordMyDesktop you can record a widow or the whole desktop with a single click. You can save the video as ogv.

3. Create Screencasts on OpenSuSe with recordMyDesktop

A picture is worth a thousand words, especially when you’re teaching someone how to do something on a computer, and recordMyDesktop is a great little Linux application for creating screencasts. YouTube is full of recordMyDesktop screencasts showing all kinds of captures, including Compiz in action.

4. Linux screencasting tool ‘Kazam’ updates, gains bug fixes galore

Screencasting made simple is the ethos behind Linux screen-recording tool ‘Kazam‘ and the latest release sees it hammer home this point with improved features and a slew of bug fixes.

So lets get down to the specifics of what’s new in the 0.11 release: –

• Kazam finally has a logo, created by Robert McKenna
• You are able to select which screen to record from
• You can now ‘pause’ in screencasts
• Options to choose video and audio quality
• Easier selection of upload URL
• Ability to go backwards from export window
• Warning when overwriting
• The biggest improvement in Kazam 0.11 doesn’t come in the shape of new features, as welcome as they are, but in the big improvements to overall stability.

Updated – October 27, 2017 by Arnab Satapathi

FFmpeg is a quite handy app to quickly record the desktop or create a screencast in Linux, immensely useful to create tutorial videos.

I’ve never found the recordmydesktop app of any use, serious performance issue, screen tearing and lots of gtk related dependencies for the GUI version, gtk-recordmydesktop. While VLC could record screen in Linux, but it over kills the purpose, little screen tearing issue too.

With FFmpeg, you could customize almost every parameter to record your screen. It’s capable of encoding the captured video on the fly to a wide range of formats, quite efficiently.

Install FFmpeg

FFmpeg is a quite mature software, already available in the software repository of almost every UNIX like distros. If you want compile the latest from source code, get them from here.

• In Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint or any Debian derivative, install it with apt.
• In any Arch Linux based distro, install it with pacman

Screen recording with FFmpeg

You may want to record the desktop only, no audio or record the desktop with audio and webcam. Lets have a quick look in some different FFmpeg options.

1. -f , used to set audio/video format
2. -s , size of the frame, Width x Height
3. -r , video frame rate, in Hz
4. -i , input device
5. -vcodec , video encoding codec
6. -acoddec , audio encoding codec
7. -threads , no. of threads in the process
8. -ac , no. of audio channel
9. -vpre , video preset
10. -codecs , list all available codecs

Record desktop only

This will start recodding the desktop, output video will be in mkv format and encoded with H.264 codec. In my case, encoding the video with vp8 or vp9 (libvpx) video codec results very high CPU use and some frame drops.

To find display resolution , you could use xrandr , and embed this command in the final script

Record desktop with sound

For recording with sound, first you have to find proper sound monitoring interface, I’m using pulseaudio for this purpose.

List available sound sources

You should notice an audio output ending with .monitor. In my case it’s alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor , I’m using a little shell script for recording the desktop

UPDATE: Recently I’ve found that it’s not possible to record audio with pulseaudio by using the script above. A quick fix could be by using ALSA, use -f alsa -i hw:0 options immidiately after ffmpeg in the script. Or just use Vokoscreen, details below.

Record cord desktop with audio and Webcam

First use ffplay to display the webcam, then start recording the desktop with the script above.

You may want to hide the ffplay window title bar to make it more clear in appearance.

Vokoscreen, FFmpeg based GUI screen recorder for Linux

Vokoscreen is for those who want an easy to use Qt based GUI screen recorder without compromising performance and usability, I could not find single glitch in this software.

• For Debian or any Debian based distro like Ubuntu, Kali Linux, install it with apt-get.
• Vokoscrreen is available in AUR for any Arch based linux distro, install it with yaourt.

Using it very simple, just few clicks to create an awesome screencast. Vokoscreen is capable of recording full screen, a window or a select area with sound and webcam.

Conclusion

No doubt FFmpeg is a great tool for recording the desktop, also very useful to convert audio/video to different formats or serve the recorded video over network in realtime with FFserver.

Am I missing something important in this tutorial ? What could be a better alternative ? Just drop a comment, I’d would like to hear from you. If you find this tutorial useful, please feel free to share it.

Olaf says

Hi Arnab,
just read about your recommendation for Vokoscreen, and I am installing it already for Linux. Thank you!

Michael says

October 21, 2017

I know this was posted a year ago, but that’s irrelevant if your info is timeless! Thank you for this post. I’ve been exploring some screencasting options, and like you said, Vokoscreen seems to be an easy AND powerful tool!

I did run into a small problem trying to use your script. I too got the same result from “pactl list sources short,” and found the
“alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor” just like you mentioned. However, when I ran the script I got the following error:
“Unable to find a suitable output format for ‘alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor’
alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor: Invalid argument.”
If you know what the problem is please drop me line. In the meantime, I’ll do some RTFM work and see if I get it right.

Thanks for the post, and hope to hear from you.

Arnab Satapathi says

October 21, 2017

Just checked the script after a long time, not working for me too, no sound from microphone.
Modify the script and use alsa instead.
fmpeg -f alsa -i hw:0 . .
Hope this helps, your feedback is always appreciated. I’ll update the tutorial.

Akhil Raj says

Hi Arnab!
I did exactly as you said but I am facing this error

“cannot open audio device hw:0 (No such file or directory)
hw:0: Input/output error”

Any idea how to resolve this?

Arnab Satapathi says

Probably you’ve to use the hw:0,0 .
Or may be even hw:1,0 i you have more than one sound card.

To identify the correct audio input interface, use arecord -l

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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I spent hours writing a guide on how to record a screencast, or record what is on the desktop, and convert it. I then found out that this is much simpler & faster and doesn’t even involve opening the commandline.

In order to do this you need VLC and gtk-recordmydesktop. They are available in most distributions repositories. If you want to do this in Windows you will have to use a screen recording program, but the VLC step is the same. I have had great success when using this, and hopefully you will too. As you can see I, I am running PCLinuxOS, but you can most likely accomplish the same thing in Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux distributions. No worries. I also noticed that the video won’t upload to metacafe in Linux. I found the best way to sidestep this is to install Firefox with WINE and upload it from there.

Please disregard the parts where it shows the video playing back. It actually does play back, but recordmydesktop doesn’t capture it.

If you have any questions or comments please leave them.

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Updated – October 27, 2017 by Arnab Satapathi

FFmpeg is a quite handy app to quickly record the desktop or create a screencast in Linux, immensely useful to create tutorial videos.

I’ve never found the recordmydesktop app of any use, serious performance issue, screen tearing and lots of gtk related dependencies for the GUI version, gtk-recordmydesktop. While VLC could record screen in Linux, but it over kills the purpose, little screen tearing issue too.

With FFmpeg, you could customize almost every parameter to record your screen. It’s capable of encoding the captured video on the fly to a wide range of formats, quite efficiently.

Install FFmpeg

FFmpeg is a quite mature software, already available in the software repository of almost every UNIX like distros. If you want compile the latest from source code, get them from here.

• In Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint or any Debian derivative, install it with apt.
• In any Arch Linux based distro, install it with pacman

Screen recording with FFmpeg

You may want to record the desktop only, no audio or record the desktop with audio and webcam. Lets have a quick look in some different FFmpeg options.

1. -f , used to set audio/video format
2. -s , size of the frame, Width x Height
3. -r , video frame rate, in Hz
4. -i , input device
5. -vcodec , video encoding codec
6. -acoddec , audio encoding codec
7. -threads , no. of threads in the process
8. -ac , no. of audio channel
9. -vpre , video preset
10. -codecs , list all available codecs

Record desktop only

This will start recodding the desktop, output video will be in mkv format and encoded with H.264 codec. In my case, encoding the video with vp8 or vp9 (libvpx) video codec results very high CPU use and some frame drops.

To find display resolution , you could use xrandr , and embed this command in the final script

Record desktop with sound

For recording with sound, first you have to find proper sound monitoring interface, I’m using pulseaudio for this purpose.

List available sound sources

You should notice an audio output ending with .monitor. In my case it’s alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor , I’m using a little shell script for recording the desktop

UPDATE: Recently I’ve found that it’s not possible to record audio with pulseaudio by using the script above. A quick fix could be by using ALSA, use -f alsa -i hw:0 options immidiately after ffmpeg in the script. Or just use Vokoscreen, details below.

Record cord desktop with audio and Webcam

First use ffplay to display the webcam, then start recording the desktop with the script above.

You may want to hide the ffplay window title bar to make it more clear in appearance.

Vokoscreen, FFmpeg based GUI screen recorder for Linux

Vokoscreen is for those who want an easy to use Qt based GUI screen recorder without compromising performance and usability, I could not find single glitch in this software.

• For Debian or any Debian based distro like Ubuntu, Kali Linux, install it with apt-get.
• Vokoscrreen is available in AUR for any Arch based linux distro, install it with yaourt.

Using it very simple, just few clicks to create an awesome screencast. Vokoscreen is capable of recording full screen, a window or a select area with sound and webcam.

Conclusion

No doubt FFmpeg is a great tool for recording the desktop, also very useful to convert audio/video to different formats or serve the recorded video over network in realtime with FFserver.

Am I missing something important in this tutorial ? What could be a better alternative ? Just drop a comment, I’d would like to hear from you. If you find this tutorial useful, please feel free to share it.

Olaf says

Hi Arnab,
just read about your recommendation for Vokoscreen, and I am installing it already for Linux. Thank you!

Michael says

October 21, 2017

I know this was posted a year ago, but that’s irrelevant if your info is timeless! Thank you for this post. I’ve been exploring some screencasting options, and like you said, Vokoscreen seems to be an easy AND powerful tool!

I did run into a small problem trying to use your script. I too got the same result from “pactl list sources short,” and found the
“alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor” just like you mentioned. However, when I ran the script I got the following error:
“Unable to find a suitable output format for ‘alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor’
alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor: Invalid argument.”
If you know what the problem is please drop me line. In the meantime, I’ll do some RTFM work and see if I get it right.

Thanks for the post, and hope to hear from you.

Arnab Satapathi says

October 21, 2017

Just checked the script after a long time, not working for me too, no sound from microphone.
Modify the script and use alsa instead.
fmpeg -f alsa -i hw:0 . .
Hope this helps, your feedback is always appreciated. I’ll update the tutorial.

Akhil Raj says

Hi Arnab!
I did exactly as you said but I am facing this error

“cannot open audio device hw:0 (No such file or directory)
hw:0: Input/output error”

Any idea how to resolve this?

Arnab Satapathi says

Probably you’ve to use the hw:0,0 .
Or may be even hw:1,0 i you have more than one sound card.

To identify the correct audio input interface, use arecord -l

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Cron is one of Linux’s most useful tools and a developer favorite because it allows you to run automated commands at specific periods, dates, and intervals using both general-purpose and task-specific scripts. Given that description, you can imagine how system admins use it to automate backup tasks, directory cleaning, notifications, etc.

Cron jobs run in the background and constantly check the /etc/crontab file, and the /etc/cron.*/ and /var/spool/cron/ directories. The cron files are not supposed to be edited directly and each user has a unique crontab.

How then are you supposed to create and edit cron jobs? With crontab commands. The crontab is the method you use to create, edit, install, uninstall, and list cron jobs.

The command for creating and editing cron jobs is the same and simple. And what’s even cooler is that you don’t need to restart cron after creating new files or editing existing ones.

Cron Syntax

Just as it is with any language, working with cron is a lot easier when you understand its syntax and there are 2 formats you should know:

Explanation of above cron syntax:

• A: Minutes range: 0 – 59
• B: Hours range: 0 – 23
• C: Days range: 0 – 31
• D: Months range: 0 – 12
• E: Days of the week range: 0 – 7. Starting from Monday, 0 or 7 represents Sunday
• USERNAME: replace this with your username
• /path/to/command – The name of the script or command you want to schedule

That’s not all. Cron uses 3 operator symbols which allow you to specify multiple values in a field:

1. Asterisk (*) : specifies all possible values for a field
2. The comma (,) : specifies a list of values
3. Dash (-) : specifies a range of values
4. Separator (/) : specifies a step value

Now that you know Cron’s syntax and operators, let’s see some cron examples.

Cron Job Examples

The first step to running cron commands is installing your crontab with the command:

Run /root/backup.sh at 3 am every day:

Run script.sh at 4:30 pm on the second of every month:

Run /scripts/phpscript.php at 10 pm during the week:

Run perlscript.pl at 23 minutes after midnight, 2am and 4am, everyday:

Run Linux command at 04:05 every Sunday:

Cron Options

Delete all crontab jobs.

Delete Cron job for a specific user.

Strings in Crontab

Strings are among the developer’s favorite things because they help to save time by eliminating repetitive writing. Cron has specific strings you can use to create commands quicker:

1. @hourly : Run once every hour i.e. “0 * * * *“
2. @midnight : Run once every day i.e. “0 0 * * *“
3. @daily : same as midnight
4. @weekly : Run once every week, i.e. “0 0 * * 0“
5. @monthly : Run once every month i.e. “0 0 1 * *“
6. @annually : Run once every year i.e. “0 0 1 1 *“
7. @yearly : same as @annually
8. @reboot : Run once at every startup

For example, this is how to backup your system every day:

At this point, you have all you need to create and manage system tasks using Cron. You can now begin to set up and maintain several environments using scheduled commands.

How much of a Cron user are you? And are there any details you can contribute to the article? The discussion box is below.

When you understand enough about how Crontab works you can use these nifty Crontab generator utilities to generate crontab lines for free.

Also, you can read Ubuntu’s article on how to use Cron here. It has resources that you might find useful.

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A screencast is a video or animated image of what is displayed on a computer screen to show readers what the instructions in Knowledge Base articles are telling them.

• Try to present Firefox in its most familiar form.
  • Use as many default settings as possible.
  • Use the default Firefox theme.
  • Use the default operating system theme.
• Lower the screen resolution or do not capture the entire screen, so it will fit in the browser window.
• Make sure there’s enough context to know what the image is of.
• If speaking, make sure you speak clearly.
• Don’t add unrelated background music – it may annoy some users.
• Screencasts should only be applied to step-by-step instructions.

On Windows, How-To Geek has a great article on recording your screen, and, of course, there are plenty of videos on YouTube on how to create a screencast.

Tips for creating screencasts:

• As with screenshots, it’s best to create a separate demo profile, so you a) know that you’re using the default setup, and b) aren’t broadcasting any private information from your main profile.
• Record a rough walkthrough of the screencast, so you know what you materials you need to set up for the main recording.
• Write a script before recording.
• Try to speak more slowly and clearly than you normally do.

Windows

• BB FlashBack Express (free)
• Camtasia Studio

• iShowU HD
• Screenflow
• Snapz Pro X

Linux

• vlc (free)
• recordMyDesktop (free)

Once you’ve uploaded your video to YouTube, you can add it to a new article (see Create a new Knowledge Base article) or to an existing article (see Edit a Knowledge Base article).

Use the following syntax to add the screencast to the article content:

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