Creating an animate GIF with Free Software

1. Install ffmpeg, gifsicle, and imagemagick:
shell# sudo aptitude update

shell# sudo aptitude install ffmpeg gifsicle imagemagick


That install command should work on Debain and Ubuntu (if you have sudo rights); other distros will install similarly.



2.  Break apart your video into JPGs, which we'll convert later but this will give us a higher quality:

shell$ ffmpeg -i source_video.mp4 stills_%4d.jpg



3.  Optional, delete the odd-numbered files to have fewer frames (all one line) and a faster video:

shell$ rm stills_*{1,3,5,7,9}.jpg




4.  Convert existing images into GIF with ImageMagick

shell$ mogrify -format gif *.jpg




5.  Convert your images to the animated GIF (all one line):

shell$ gifsicle --loopcount --careful --colors 256 --interlace --optimize --resize-width 200 --delay 1 stills_*.gif -o animated-gif.gif


Or rotate if necessary (all one line):

shell$ gifsicle --rotate-90 --loopcount --careful --colors 256 --interlace --optimize --resize-width 200 --delay 1 stills_*.gif -o animated-gif.gif



Your output GIF will be named animated-gif.gif