How to make a screenshot under Debian ?
Using Gnome
Gnome has built-in capability to make a screenshot (package gnome-utils). Simply press:
- "Print Screen" key to take a screenshot of the whole screen.
- Alt+"Print Screen" key to take a screenshot of the current active window.
More options are available in "Gnome Application Menu/Acessories/Take Screenshot" (like delayed screen shot).
Read gnome-screenshot manpage and "Take Screenshot" help page for more information.
Using KDE
KDE has the capability to make a screenshot (using package ksnapshot). Simply press:
- "Print Screen" key to take a screenshot of the whole screen.
Read ksnapshot handbook for more information.
Using command line
Just open a graphical terminal and type:
sleep 5; xwd -root | convert - capture.png or sleep 5; xwd -root | xwdtopnm | pnmtopng > capture.png
The command xwd is a standard xorg tool, which creates a pnm file. you can then use imagemagick 's convert, or netpbm 's xwdtopnm tool)
A powerful alternative tool is scrot, which can directly save files as png (and other formats), and generate a filename. see scrot(1).
Console / Xterm
Rather that making a graphical snapshot of the console/command line or X-window terminal, it's usually better to copy the actual text content (select the region with a mouse).
Console
To you use the mouse on the Console screen, you need to install gpm (run apt-get install gpm).
- Select the region to copy by pressing the mouse's left-button, then drag.
- Open your favorite text editor, then paste the selected text using the right button.
advanced tip: if you don't want to use a text editor, you can run cat > /tmp/outfile.txt, then paste the content using right-button, then press Ctrl-D (once).
Framebuffer
If your system is using framebuffer (vga=XXX kernel argument, etc..), you can use fbgrab to capture and convert the framebuffer content.
fbgrab fb.png screen.png
Hint: If fbgrab isn't installed when you want to capture the screen, you can use cp /dev/fb0 screen.raw, then use fbgrab -f screen.raw -w 1024 -h 768 -b 16 screen.png
Other Tools
Debian provides some other (advanced) tools to make screenshot, including gimp .
Debian Installer GUI screenshots
DebianInstaller's GUI has a take "Screenshot" button.
To fetch the captured screen :
- Click "Go Back" until you get to the main menu of the installer (this can be postponed until a later point in the installation).
- Select the "Save debug logs" option.
Select one of the three option : "floppy", "web server" or "mounted filesystem". (The web server way is very convenient if you have another computer around).
- Then follow the instructions in the next dialog.
- When you get back to the menu, resume the installation at the next step (which should be the one that is selected when the menu is displayed).
If you complete the installation, the screenshots can also be found in the directory /var/log/installer/ (after the reboot into the installed system).
License of screenshots
Screenshots are considered as derivative works (according to SPI legal counsel), see http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2008/08/msg00016.html.
See Also
screenshots.debian.net, is a public repository of screenshots taken from applications contained in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution