maybe with permission Tilda, the two pop-up, drop-down terminals or, as they are referred to in English, drop-down They are Guake and Yakuake. Although it seems that they want to hide this detail, it is supposed that the first is based on the second, but in some comparisons the G is better valued. The reason? It couldn't be funnier: in Slant They say that because it can be displayed just by pressing the F12 key, a behavior shared by both. So here we are going to talk about Yakuake vs Guake to see if we find any real difference for which it is worth choosing one or the other.
As we mentioned, Guake is supposed to be based on Yakuake, who borrowed the idea of the dropdown terminal from Quake. He rides so much, he rides so much. The point is that both coexist and none is installed by default, although Yakuake is on some distributions, such as Manjaro. The main differences are the base that each one uses and where they look better.
Yakuake vs Guake is also KDE vs GNOME
Yakuake weighs less than Guake, but this has an explanation: it's a KDE Extragear, that is, an unofficial KDE application, but it's close to being one. However, Guake is more independent. This results in Yakuake sharing more with the rest of the KDE desktop than Guake does with GNOME, and although if we write "neofetch" we will see that the name of the terminal is "Yakuake", the truth is that it is more Console what other thing.
This also translates into something else: Guake is more customizable than Yakuake, as shown by the preferences of each put face to face:
But the options, although it is never a bad thing to have them, can be overwhelming. Guake seems to have a very little gnome philosophy, and let me explain that: the GNOME circle apps do just the right thing and are easy to use, with very few options to tweak things. However, Guake is loaded with options, and they can come in handy for the most expert users, but not so much for those who don't know what to play.
By default, Guake does not offer the possibility to modify its size, and Yakuake does. The KDE proposal is displayed by default at 90% width, as seen in the header screenshot, and we can change width and height from Configure/Window, which shows that, sometimes, the GNOME philosophy is sufficient and even better than KDE's, but in this case the roles are exchanged.
terminal functions
Both terminals offer the basic functions and more. Now, Yakuake, as the KDE app that it is, offers typical project options, such as the possibility of dividing the screen in two and showing, for example, one terminal on the left and another on the right. But in both cases you can use the tabs, which I think is more than enough in most cases.
The terminals themselves are… well terminals. Or rather, terminal emulators. You can do anything with them, and both have a reason for being: they live on top of our desk, and by default they are displayed by pressing the F12 key. If it is not configured to do so, they will not start with the operating system, and once opened they are consuming a few megabytes of our memory. The consumption is even, and in both cases they stay below 50mb (in my tests).
What should I base my decision on to choose between Yakuake and Guake?
The decision to use Yakuake or Guake should be made, above all, with the desktop in mind. Yakuake is designed for KDE and Guake for GNOME, so everyone is better at home. You can also think about features and options, and Yakuake allows you to split the screen while Guake offers more control over some customizations.
And if not, in this Yakuake vs Guake we are going to include a bonus: the aforementioned Tilda. It consumes a little more than Yakuake and Guake, but the installation is very clean and only a package of a few Kb is installed. It offers many configuration options, by default it is launched with F1 and the terminal occupies the entire screen. Not having any interface, or more specifically nothing of its own such as window frames, it looks good in GNOME, KDE or any other graphical environment such as Xfce. Maybe not so much on desktops like Budgie or Deepin, but because they like the most colorful things.
My personal recommendation would be choose what is developed for our desktop, or another option if ours does not have it and we miss it. That or Tilda, which is minimal software that won't look bad in any scenario. Now, Tilda has little or nothing to do with -uake.