Overview

fbcat takes a screenshot using the Linux framebuffer device. Two executables are provided:

• Low-level fbcat that operates on the current virtual terminal and writes the screenshot to stdout in the PPM_ format:

  .. code:: console

  $ fbcat > screenshot.ppm $ file screenshot.ppm screenshot.ppm: Netpbm image data, size = 1280 x 1024, rawbits, pixmap

.. _PPM: https://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/ppm.html

• High-level fbgrab that supports the PNG format and virtual terminal switching:

  .. code:: console

  $ fbgrab '-?' Usage: fbgrab [option...] <filename.png|->

  Options: -c <N> grab from /dev/ttyN -C <N> grab from /dev/ttyN, for slower devices -d use framebuffer device -i turn on PNG interlacing -s <N> sleep <N> seconds before making screenshot -? show this help message and exit

  If the specified destination is "-", the PNG output is piped to stdout.

See the manual pages for details.

The following visuals are supported:

• TRUECOLOR
• DIRECTCOLOR
• PSEUDOCOLOR
• STATIC_PSEUDOCOLOR
• MONO01
• MONO10

Prerequisites

The following software is needed to build fbcat:

• C compiler
• Linux kernel userspace headers
• GNU make

Additionally, the following software is needed to rebuild the manual pages from source:

• xsltproc (part of libxslt_)
• DocBook XSL stylesheets_

fbgrab requires the following software:

• chvt (part of KBD_)
• pnmtopng (part of Netpbm_) or GraphicsMagick_ or ImageMagick_

.. _libxslt: http://xmlsoft.org/xslt/ .. _DocBook XSL stylesheets: https://github.com/docbook/xslt10-stylesheets .. _KBD: https://kbd-project.org/ .. _Netpbm: https://netpbm.sourceforge.net/ .. _GraphicsMagick: http://www.graphicsmagick.org/ .. _ImageMagick: https://imagemagick.org/

Installation

To install system-wide::

$ make $ sudo make install

The default installation prefix is /usr/local. You can specify different one using the PREFIX variable, e.g.::

$ make install PREFIX="$HOME/.local"

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