Ubuntu – Save current terminal scrollback to file

You appear to have a number of options, but gnome-terminal doesn't support logging to a file by itself.

• You can run the script command before your output in order to accomplish this. See this Launchapd Q&A for more.

• You can install and use a different terminal instead of gnome-terminal, which supports logging all output to a file, such as Putty. There may be others.

• You can simply highlight the text output you require, then use CTRL-SHIFT-C to copy the text.

The text that is displayed in the terminal comes from the stderr stream (2). If you do just make > build_log.txt, only the stdout (1) stream is redirected to the build_log.txt file.

• stdout is the standard output stream and has file descriptor number 1. This is the default stream being redirected in shells.
• stderr is the standard error stream and has file descriptor number 2

To redirect the stderr stream to that build_log.txt file too, use:

make > build_log.txt 2>&1

• make is executed and
  • the stdout stream is redirected (>) to build_log.txt
  • the stderr stream is redirected (2>) to the stdout stream (&1), which was redirected to build_log.txt

The order is important, you cannot switch switch the redirection operators like make 2>&1 > build_log.txt.

Alternative command:

make 2>&1 | tee build_log.txt > /dev/null

The redirection to /dev/null is needed to hide output, tee writes its input to build_log.txt and outputs it too.